Shares of SoftBank Group Corp. , the Japanese software service provider responsible for Pepper the robot, were upgraded to buy from hold at Deutsche Bank on Wednesday. Analyst Peter Milliken said the upgrade reflected the company’s new $100 billion Vision Fund, an international tech fund the telecom giant established with a Saudi Arabia sovereign wealth fund last October that includes a $1 billion contribution from Apple Inc. . Should the fund receive fees of 1% of committed capital, it’d immediately become “a significant profit contributor” to SoftBank, he said. Once all $100 billion is committed, the fund would have the potential to lift earnings by an estimated 9%, according to the Deutsche Bank analysis. The brokerage raised its price target on the stock to 9,200 yen from 7,000. Shares of SoftBank traded up 0.8% to 8242 yen on Wednesday. They’ve risen 24% in the past three months and 61% in the past year.
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