SoftBank raises $11.1B through massive bond sale to fund OpenAI investment
The bond issuance, one of the largest from an Asia-Pacific non-financial corporate, will cover SoftBank's final $10B tranche in a $30B OpenAI commitment.
SoftBank just pulled off one of the largest bond sales ever from an Asia-Pacific non-financial corporate, raising $11.1 billion to keep feeding its insatiable appetite for artificial intelligence. The proceeds are headed straight toward the company’s final $10 billion installment in a $30 billion investment in OpenAI, a deal expected to close on October 1.
When Masayoshi Son bets on something, he doesn’t do it quietly. And this time, the market seems to agree with him: SoftBank’s stock surged more than 7% following the announcement.
Breaking down the bond sale
The $11.1 billion haul is split across two currencies. The lion’s share, $10 billion, came from US dollar-denominated senior unsecured notes spread across three different maturities. The remaining roughly $1.14 billion came from approximately one billion euros in euro-denominated notes.
This latest raise brings SoftBank’s year-to-date capital raising total to roughly $37 billion through bonds and loans, all funneled toward AI investments and repayment of bridge financing.
The OpenAI obsession
Once this final tranche lands, SoftBank’s cumulative investment in OpenAI will balloon to approximately $64.6 billion. That buys the Japanese conglomerate roughly a 13% ownership stake in the company behind ChatGPT.
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SoftBank still holds a major stake in Arm Holdings, the chip designer whose architectures power the vast majority of the world’s mobile devices and an increasing share of data center infrastructure. It previously held a significant position in Nvidia but divested that stake.
The strategy, in simplified terms: own the chip blueprints through Arm, own a slice of the most prominent AI model builder through OpenAI, and sit at the intersection of both.
What this means for markets
The 7%-plus stock price jump suggests that shareholders view the bond issuance as accretive rather than dilutive to value. But there are risks worth watching. SoftBank’s balance sheet is now deeply concentrated in a handful of AI-related positions. Arm Holdings and OpenAI account for an outsized share of the company’s portfolio value.
Son has been here before. He bet big on Alibaba in 2000 and turned a $20 million investment into one worth over $100 billion at its peak. He also bet big on WeWork and watched billions evaporate.