SoftBank plans record ¥1T bond sale to fund OpenAI investments

SoftBank Group is preparing to sell ¥1 trillion in retail bonds in Japan, roughly $6.3 billion, making it the largest bond issuance by any entity in the country’s history. The proceeds will fuel the company’s increasingly massive investment in OpenAI, which has now surpassed $60 billion in total commitments. The 7-year bond is expected to price on September 4, with an indicative coupon rate between 4.3% and 4.9%. With Japan’s benchmark 10-year government bond rate sitting at multi-decade highs, the broader environment has made fixed-income products more attractive to retail buyers. A funding machine running on overdrive This isn’t even SoftBank’s first retail bond rodeo this year. It’s the third. The company sold ¥418 billion in bonds in April, followed by another ¥260 billion tranche in June. Adding the new ¥1 trillion offering, SoftBank will have raised roughly ¥1.68 trillion from Japanese retail investors in 2026 alone. Beyond the bond market, SoftBank has also arranged a $40 billion unsecured bridge loan maturing in March 2027. That facility supports both the OpenAI investments and related infrastructure development. The OpenAI bet keeps getting bigger SoftBank’s total commitme...