SoftBank Group is seeking a $10 billion SoftBank OpenAI margin loan collateralized by its OpenAI shares, Bloomberg reported Thursday, as founder Masayoshi Son accelerates the Japanese conglomerate's leveraged bet on artificial intelligence.
The two-year facility, extendable by a year, stacks on top of a $40 billion bridge loan signed last month and a $3.6 billion multi-tranche bond deal priced last week. Pledging private equity in a pre-profit company as collateral (a margin loan uses the borrower's securities as security for the debt, with lenders able to demand more collateral or liquidate the shares if their value drops) signals both conviction in OpenAI's trajectory and diminishing access to cheaper, unsecured funding — a structure that tightens the feedback loop between OpenAI's valuation and SoftBank's balance sheet.
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Masayoshi Son AI Investment Strains SoftBank's Credit Profile
The cost of insuring SoftBank's debt rose roughly 10 basis points on the news, with SoftBank credit default swaps reaching about 360 basis points, near a one-year high of 376 hit in late March, according to CMA data. That repricing follows S&P Global Ratings' March move to cut SoftBank's credit outlook to negative, citing risks that its OpenAI exposure could strain liquidity and asset quality. The recent 10-year dollar bond tranche cleared at an 8.5% coupon — the highest SoftBank has ever paid on such a security.
The Masayoshi Son AI investment thesis now rests on OpenAI delivering returns before creditors force a repricing. SoftBank committed up to $30 billion to OpenAI in its March 2025 funding round that valued the ChatGPT maker at $300 billion, and is also the lead financial backer of the Stargate data center joint venture with OpenAI and Oracle, a project targeting $500 billion in US AI infrastructure buildout over four years.
OpenAI Shares Collateral Structure Tests Creditor Appetite
Equity markets have taken the opposite view of the debt markets: SoftBank shares are up roughly 31.5% year-to-date, outpacing the Topix's 8.3% gain. The stock closed at ¥11,420 on the Tokyo Stock Exchange on Thursday, little changed on the margin loan report.
The OpenAI shares collateral pricing and final size, not yet disclosed, will test how much further creditors will extend before collateral terms tighten. Margin loans typically include maintenance triggers requiring borrowers to post additional collateral or repay principal if the pledged asset's mark-to-market value falls below a set threshold — a mechanism that could force SoftBank to liquidate OpenAI stakes or inject cash if private valuations soften.
OpenAI is reportedly in talks for a secondary share sale that would value the company at around $500 billion, up from the $300 billion mark set in March 2025. A successful close at that level would lift the collateral value underpinning SoftBank's stack of loans. A failure, or a markdown, would cut the other way.
