SoftBank seeks over $11B in junk bond deal to fund OpenAI investment

SoftBank Group is preparing to issue more than $11 billion in high-yield bonds, making it one of the largest junk bond offerings in recent memory. The proceeds are earmarked almost entirely for the company’s mounting financial commitments to OpenAI, the AI lab behind ChatGPT. The deal structure includes $10 billion in US dollar-denominated bonds spread across three maturities, plus €1 billion in euro-denominated notes across two maturities. The issuance is expected to price around September 24, 2026, with Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley running the books. What SoftBank is actually buying SoftBank’s total commitment to OpenAI is approaching $65 billion, in exchange for a targeted 13% stake in the company. That math implies a pre-money valuation of $730 billion for OpenAI, a number that would make it one of the most valuable private companies ever to exist. The bond deal is part of a broader financing push that has seen the Japanese conglomerate raise approximately $37 billion year-to-date through a combination of loans and bond sales. Just days before this offering, on September 15, 2026, SoftBank repaid $25.9 billion of a $40 billion bridge loan it had taken ...