SoftBank to Hold Off on New Investments in China Amid Tech Crackdown

TOKYO— SoftBank Group Corp. s net profit dropped 40% in the latest quarter as the company said it is holding back on new investments in China while it sees how Beijing's move to tame its technology sector plays out. The giant Japanese investor and operator of the $100 billion Vision Fund is one of the world's best-known funders of Chinese startups. But recently, the value of many of those investments has been tumbling fast, after Chinese regulators started investigating some SoftBank investee companies for breaches including anticompetitive practices, consumer protection and data-security problems. The decline in many of those valuations…