The private equity fi rm that manages the parent company of the State Journal-Register is being sold to SoftBank, a telecommunications and internet company founded and headed by a Japanese billionaire whom Forbes last year reported was among the world’s 100 richest people. The sale of Fortress Investment Group for $3.3 billion in cash – $1 billion more than the company’s stock market value, according to the New York Times – was announced last week and on the heels of a December meeting between Donald Trump and Masayoshi Son, SoftBank’s founder and CEO who reportedly lost $70 billion in a single day during the dot.com crash nearly two decades ago, believed to be a record amount lost by anyone since folks started counting money. Son has bounced back and is now worth an estimated $21.5 billion, according to Forbes. Son in December reportedly told the president-to-be that SoftBank, which already owns Sprint, would invest $50 billion in the United States and create 50,000 new jobs. In addition to managing New Media Investment Group, the company that owns GateHouse that in turn owns the SJ-R, Fortress has interests that range from real estate to a railroad company to a fi rm that makes subprime loans. Fortress’s fortunes have fallen since the company went public in 2007, with its stock slipping by 80 percent during the past decade, but it has recovered a bit in recent years and especially on the day before the SoftBank deal was announced last week, when Fortress stock went up by 6.5 percent in heavy trading.