Latest Tokyo Brief coverage on SoftBank Group Corp., tracking filings, financial news, and market signals from Japan.
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SoftBank Group paid the last $10bn of its $30bn OpenAI top-up on October 1 with senior bond proceeds, taking cumulative investment to $64.6bn and its stake to about 13%, and cancelled $10bn of undrawn bridge capacity.
SoftBank Group locked in coupons of 7.125% to 9.75% on $10bn of dollar notes and €1bn of euro notes rated BB+ by two agencies, saying the money will fund the last $10bn tranche of its $30bn OpenAI Group commitment and that it separately plans to cancel the remaining $10bn of an unused bridge facility.
A SoftBank-controlled AI data-centre developer is selling shares to Japanese retail investors through five brokers before Nasdaq has approved its listing, while NVIDIA has agreed to buy $1.5bn of unregistered stock in a private placement tied to the same deal.
SoftBank Group will wipe out the full $25.9bn balance on its OpenAI bridge loan on September 15, retiring debt it drew under a $40bn facility signed less than six months earlier, though the filing does not say where the repayment funds are coming from.
SoftBank Group set terms on a ¥1 trillion, seven-year bond at 4.75%, and roughly half the ¥988.5bn raised will simply refinance bonds due this month and next spring, while the rest is conditional funding for the ABB robotics acquisition, with a fallback to bridge-loan repayment if that deal slips.
SoftBank Group is raising ¥1tn from mostly individual investors through a seven-year unsecured bond, with the coupon to be fixed in a 4.30%-4.90% range on September 4.
The 10-year issue is split between a ¥73.5bn tranche and a ¥107bn tranche with an early-redemption clause, leaving ¥2.81tn of unused capacity under Mizuho's current programme.