Softbank kicked off what could be one of the biggest junk bond issues never realized. The Japanese giant has launched a maxi placement from over 11 billion dollars The goal is to convince investors to finance the company's billion-dollar investments in artificial intelligence, particularly OpenAI.
Softbank: Returns near 10%, orders above $30 billion
The Japanese giant has promoted on the market an operation divided into several tranches and aims to raise the equivalent of over 11 billion dollars through a tranche of 10 billion dollars and a component in 1 billion euros (1,1 billion dollars).
According to data collected by Bloomberg, for dollar componentSoftbank is proposing $1 billion in 3,5-year notes, with a target yield of 8,75% to 8,875%; $4,5 billion in 5,5-year notes, with a target yield of 9,375% to 9,5%; and another $4,5 billion in 7,5-year notes, with a target yield of 9,75% to 9,875%. These are the highest levels ever recorded for SoftBank dollar bonds with such maturities.
Late Wednesday afternoon in Asia, the order book relative to the dollar part had already exceeded the 30 billion dollars, Bloomberg reports.
With regard to the euro component, The conglomerate is instead proposing four-year bonds with a yield of around 7,5% and six-year notes with a yield between 8,25% and 8,5%. For the first tranche, this would be close to or equal to the record level, while for the longer tranche it would be a record, the US news agency emphasizes.
In 2026, the market will see €575 billion in AI-related emissions.
The mega-issue is just the latest in a series of bonds that Softbank has placed on the debt markets this year to finance the huge investments in OpenAi. These are commitments that border on 65 billion dollars to which are added further mergers and acquisitions operations in the sector.
The Japanese group, moreover, is not the only one to turn massively to the markets to obtain financing: according to a recent report by the credit strategists of Goldman Sachs Group cited by Bloomberg, the AI-related debt issuance globally have already surpassed the 575 billions of dollars in the 2026A wave that has raised many fears among investors, worried that the growing amount of debt could cause negative repercussions on the markets if the technology does not generate the desired returns for the companies making the largest investments, among which the star-spangled big tech companies stand out.
Softbank's CEO, Masayoshi Son, however, tried to reassure, declaring at the beginning of the year that he expected AI-related sectors to represent 20% of global production by 2040, a figure equal to 46.000 billion dollars.
