SoftBank India head Sumer Juneja given additional role to manage Europe, ME investments

Sumer Juneja, Managing Partner and Head of India at SoftBank Investment Advisers, has been given a global role to lead and manage investments in Europe, the Japanese conglomerate’s secondary largest market after US, sources close to the development said. 

Besides Europe, Juneja will also oversee investments in the Middle East and Africa regions. 

He will split his time between London and Mumbai. Sarthak Misra and Narendra Rathi, Investment Directors at the India office, will assist Juneja in managing the operations in the country, which accounts for about 10 per cent of Vision Fund’s overall assets under management (AUM). 

“The India team will remain the same. Sumer has been recognised for the way he has run the operations in India with a very lean structure of about 12 people including just seven people in the investing team. This team manages an AUM of about $20-25 billion,” a source privy to the matter said. 

Sumer Juneja's meteoric rise to become the Managing Partner at SoftBank in just three years is an unusual feat. Juneja is credited with steering the investment giant in a new direction in the country where it writes smaller cheques and enters companies very early in their lifecycle now.  

“He has done about 15 investments since setting up SoftBank’s office in India in 2018 and most of them have done reasonably well. This is a Masa (SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son) move, he has been very appreciative of his work and Rajeev has always been supportive of him. Therefore, now he is given a bigger geographic role besides India,” sources added. 

The development comes about a month after it was reported that Rajeev Misra, a key aide of Son, will be stepping down from an executive role at Vision Fund 2 as he prepares to launch a new fund. Misra will take on a dual role of running his own investment vehicle as well as acting as the CEO of Vision Fund 1, managed by SoftBank Investment Advisers. Nearly 80 per cent the Vision Fund 1 is contributed by outside investors including Middle Eastern sovereign wealth funds. Son will take up the chief executive role at SoftBank Global Advisers, the entity that manages the $55 billion Vision fund 2 while Misra will remain as a Vice Chairman. Vision fund 2 is fully self-financed by SoftBank. 

SoftBank’s managing partners Yanni Pipilis and Munish Varma are moving on from the fund to join Misra’s venture. In fact, Juneja’s elevation to the global role comes on the last working day for both Pipilis and Varma with the firm. 

A SoftBank spokesperson declined to comment on the development.

Misra’s move is understood to have been initiated in agreement with Son to avoid any potential conflict of interest in the future as the former’s upcoming investment vehicle is likely to get backing from funds from the Middle East, some of whom are sponsors of Vision Fund 1. It is also possible that his fund, which will take at least a year to begin operations, may co-invest with SoftBank in the future.