SoftBank Group issued $11.1 billion in dollar- and euro-denominated bonds on Thursday, in what Reuters called the largest high-yield bond sale on record by an Asia-Pacific issuer, as the Japanese conglomerate seeks to fund its "mammoth bet" on OpenAI, Business Recorder reports.
The dollar notes were split into three tranches: $1 billion at a 3.5-year term paying 8.625%, $4.5 billion at 5.5 years paying 9.25%, and $4.5 billion at 7.5 years paying 9.75%. SoftBank also sold two €500 million tranches, with four- and six-year terms yielding 7.125% and 8% respectively. The sale comes on top of a 1 trillion yen ($6.3 billion) bond issue aimed at retail investors earlier this month.
SoftBank has now committed $64.6 billion to OpenAI, plus billions more in related AI infrastructure projects, part of founder Masayoshi Son's push to make the conglomerate a dominant investor in the sector.
The cost of insuring SoftBank's debt against default has climbed sharply: the five-year credit default swap spread exceeded 400 basis points this week, up from around 280 basis points in June and around 200 basis points in October 2025. Even so, SoftBank's share price rose more than 6% in morning trading on Thursday. The company says it aims to keep its loan-to-value ratio under 25% in normal conditions, rising to as much as 35% in extraordinary circumstances; at the end of June, that ratio stood at 13%.