SoftBank Group launched the sale of about $11 billion of bonds on Monday to fund the next installment of its investment in OpenAI, with the offering also set to retire a $10 billion bridge loan facility the Japanese group had arranged earlier for the same wager, according to a term sheet (Reuters).

The deal splits into $10 billion of dollar-denominated senior unsecured notes and €1 billion of euro-denominated notes across five tranches in total. The dollar notes carry maturities of 3.5, 5.5 and 7.5 years, while the euro notes have 4-year and 6-year terms, the term sheet showed. Citigroup and JPMorgan are running the sale, with pricing set for September 24 and settlement on September 29.

With a face value above $11 billion, the offering would rank among the biggest junk-bond sales ever by a single company, not including distressed debt exchanges. SoftBank has already sold close to $15 billion of bonds in multiple currencies this year, the most among junk-rated corporate borrowers in 2026. The scale underlines how central high-yield debt markets have become to funding SoftBank's AI commitments.

Proceeds will cover SoftBank's $10 billion payment for the third tranche of its follow-on investment in OpenAI, due to close on October 1, with the remainder going to general corporate purposes. The calendar is tight: pricing lands September 24, settlement follows on September 29, the OpenAI payment closes two days later.

From $40 billion bridge loan to bond market

SoftBank had sought a $40 billion bridge loan in March to fund most of the OpenAI push, with four lenders, including JPMorgan, reportedly set to underwrite it, as Cryptopolitan previously reported. The new notes also cancel a $10 billion bridge facility SoftBank had lined up for the deal. In doing so, the group is swapping short-term bank credit for longer-dated capital-markets debt — consistent with the replacement plan it set out in February.

On September 9, SoftBank said it had prepaid the entire $25.9 billion outstanding on the $40 billion March facility, of which $30 billion had been drawn.

The pledge dates back to a February 27 announcement, when SoftBank committed $30 billion to OpenAI through Vision Fund 2 at a pre-money valuation of $730 billion, payable in three equal installments on April 1, July 1 and October 1. SoftBank said in February that bridge would fund the investment first and be replaced over time by existing assets and other financing measures.

2031 notes yield 8.2%, up from 6.7% in January

The yield on SoftBank's dollar bond due 2031 surged to 8.2% this month from as low as 6.7% in January, and the cost of insuring SoftBank's debt against default soared to a three-year high. The difference amounts to roughly 1.5 percentage points of additional annual interest on SoftBank's dollar debt compared with January, a reminder of what it now costs a speculative-grade borrower to fund at this scale. The group is rated BB+ by S&P and Fitch, the highest notch of speculative grade. Its April notes were priced at 7.625% for 3.5 years and 8.250% for 5.5 years, and it sold a record retail bond in Japan at 4.75% on September 4 — about 350 basis points cheaper than what offshore institutions now require for the same credit. Pricing on September 24 will set the final coupons investors receive on the new notes.

SoftBank has pledged close to $65 billion for a stake of about 13% in OpenAI, financed through loans and asset sales. A margin loan against Arm shares widened to $25 billion and a credit line rose to $6.5 billion. The group also sold its entire stake in Nvidia and a large chunk of its T-Mobile shares, while Apollo Global Management is in talks to expand a loan to SoftBank.

Separately, SoftBank acquired ABB's industrial robotics business for $5.4 billion and data center private equity firm DigitalBridge for about $3 billion. Its U.S. unit, SB Energy, is building 8.8 gigawatts of data-center capacity, estimated to need $174 billion in capital.

OpenAI Chief Executive Sam Altman said the company will not go public this year, delaying the liquidity a listing would give SoftBank.