SoftBank Group Corp on Monday launched a junk-bond offering exceeding $11 billion to help finance its tens-of-billions-of-dollars investment commitment in OpenAI.
The Japanese conglomerate launched $10 billion in dollar-denominated notes and 1 billion euros in euro-denominated senior unsecured notes, seeking more than $11 billion combined in what would rank among the largest junk bond deals on record, according to a term sheet reported.
Proceeds are earmarked largely for SoftBank’s investment in OpenAI, the ChatGPT maker, as part of its broader push into artificial intelligence infrastructure. Junk bonds are debt rated below investment grade, meaning lenders demand higher interest to compensate for greater default risk.
A Debt-Heavy Path To AI Exposure
The deal, first reported by Bloomberg, lands as SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son continues to lever up the company’s balance sheet to chase AI exposure rather than fund the bet primarily through equity or asset sales.
SoftBank has increasingly relied on borrowing, share pledges and asset monetization, rather than cash reserves alone, to finance its AI ambitions.
The Scale Of SoftBank’s Borrowing
The dollar and euro tranches signal that SoftBank wants to lock in financing quickly at higher junk-rated borrowing costs. At more than $11 billion, the offering is large enough to draw comparisons with the biggest high-yield corporate bond deals ever priced.
That scale reflects how central the OpenAI bet has become to SoftBank’s identity as an investor, with the company increasingly described as a leveraged proxy for OpenAI’s growth rather than a diversified holding firm.
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Nikkei reported the raise is intended to cover a large share of SoftBank’s OpenAI-related funding commitments, though neither SoftBank nor OpenAI has detailed exactly how the new debt maps onto specific investment tranches already pledged.
The financing demonstrates the scale of SoftBank’s AI exposure, not what OpenAI products deliver in ordinary use. No availability, pricing, rate-limit, regional or tier details are provided here.
Pricing And Concentration Risk
Investors will price the notes based on SoftBank’s credit risk and its concentrated exposure to OpenAI’s future value, a bet that remains unproven since OpenAI has not gone public and its long-term profitability is untested. If OpenAI’s valuation climbs, the leverage could amplify SoftBank’s returns, but a stumble would leave the company carrying junk-rated debt against a single concentrated position.
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