SoftBank Group is asking the global bond market to shoulder what its banks would rather hand off. The Japanese conglomerate is in talks with investment banks about a bond offering of $10 billion to $20 billion, denominated in dollars and euros and potentially launching as early as September, to refinance the $40 billion bridge loan that has been carrying Masayoshi Son's roughly $65 billion bet on OpenAI. Bloomberg first reported the discussions on August 26, citing people familiar with the matter. At the top end of that range, it would be the largest bond deal by an Asian corporate this year.
The size, timing and structure all remain fluid, and SoftBank was careful to say so. "We are considering various options to refinance the bridge loan, but nothing has been decided, including the amount for each," a SoftBank spokesperson said in response to the report. But the direction of travel is unmistakable. The company is also weighing a 144A format that would open the notes to US institutional buyers, a structure it has not used in more than a decade and one that would meaningfully widen its investor base at exactly the moment it needs depth.
The math behind the urgency is straightforward. In late February, SoftBank agreed to follow-on investments of $30 billion in OpenAI through Vision Fund 2, lifting cumulative commitments to roughly $64.6 billion and its ownership to about 13%. To fund it, the group drew a $40 billion unsecured bridge facility in March, underwritten by JPMorgan Chase, Goldman Sachs, Mizuho, Sumitomo Mitsui and MUFG, maturing around March 2027. A final $10 billion installment is due to OpenAI on October 1. The bridge was always meant to be temporary financing against a liquidity event that has not arrived: OpenAI's IPO, reportedly targeted at a $1 trillion valuation, has slipped toward 2027.
Borrowing From Everyone at Once
The offshore bond is only one leg of a fundraising campaign running on three tracks simultaneously. On August 24, SoftBank announced a ¥1 trillion ($6.3 billion) retail bond sale in Japan, seven-year paper to be priced September 4 with an indicative coupon of 4.3% to 4.9%. It is the largest retail bond offering ever by a Japanese company, tying NTT Finance's ¥1 trillion institutional deal, and SoftBank's third retail issue this year. The group has also closed a $10 billion margin loan secured against its OpenAI stake, arranged with Goldman Sachs Bank USA, JPMorgan Chase Bank, Mizuho Securities USA, Apollo Global Funding and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp. That facility had stalled earlier in the summer as lenders balked at collateral in a private company; its completion was a meaningful unlock.
Retail investors in Japan appear willing. "With the market pricing the Bank of Japan's terminal rate at just under 2%, this level seems reasonably appealing" for mom-and-pop investors, said Masahiro Ichikawa, chief market strategist at Sumitomo Mitsui DS Asset Management, noting that retail buyers are typically more flexible on issuer credit risk than institutions. SoftBank's "Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks Bonds," named for the baseball team it owns, have been a reliable domestic funding channel for years.
Institutional credit investors were less charitable. On the day of the Bloomberg report, SoftBank's 8.5% dollar bond fell 2.3 cents to about 98 cents, its steepest one-day decline since the notes were priced in April, and credit-default swaps on the company widened 10.7 basis points. That April deal raised $3.6 billion across dollar and euro tranches, with the 10-year dollar piece carrying that 8.5% coupon, a reminder of what junk-rated SoftBank pays when it goes offshore. Equity investors read the same news differently: Tokyo-listed shares rose 2.8% to ¥5,228, two days after falling 5.3% to their lowest level since late July.
Bloomberg Intelligence credit analyst Sharon Chen estimated that a deal of this scale would substantially narrow SoftBank's funding gap, which she puts at more than $20 billion, but that the company will likely have to pay up to clear it.
Why It Matters
This is the AI boom's financing structure becoming visible. Companies have raised more than $410 billion in bond markets this year for data centers and AI projects, and SoftBank is the most leveraged expression of that trade: a holding company borrowing in yen, dollars and euros, against listed shares and private ones, to fund a stake in a company that does not yet generate the cash to service any of it. Every refinancing converts a short-dated, relationship-based bank obligation into long-dated public debt held by investors with no strategic reason to be patient.
Ratings agencies have already drawn the line. "We think Arm has a solid credit profile but OpenAI is very weak. It's a startup with significant AI innovation risk and lots of competition," said Makiko Yoshimura of S&P Global Ratings, which nonetheless raised SoftBank's outlook to stable from negative in July as Arm's share price climbed. S&P's loan-to-value calculation, which includes margin loans backed by investee shares, put SoftBank at 33% at the end of March against the company's internal figure of 17%. CFO Yoshimitsu Goto has argued the trend is favorable: "As of March I can say our loan to value and cash position have been improving," he said at the last earnings briefing.
The risk is reflexive. "If Arm's valuation drops, the value of the loan against it does not," warned Amir Anvarzadeh of Asymmetric Advisors. "A significant drop in the price of its assets could mean a liquidity squeeze." Fitch has flagged an AI market correction as a principal credit risk.
Watch three things in September: whether the deal prices at all, and at what spread over the April 8.5% benchmark; whether the ¥1 trillion retail book clears at the low or high end of the 4.3% to 4.9% range on September 4; and whether the October 1 payment to OpenAI closes without a fourth financing source appearing. If the offshore deal lands near $20 billion at a tolerable cost, Son buys himself another year. If books come in thin, the bridge to March 2027 starts looking a lot shorter than it did in March 2026.
“We think Arm has a solid credit profile but OpenAI is very weak. It's a startup with significant AI innovation risk and lots of competition.”— Makiko Yoshimura, Credit analyst, S&P Global Ratings