SoftBank cuts OpenAI margin loan target by 40% to $6 billion after lender pushback

SoftBank cuts target for OpenAI margin loan, Bloomberg News reports

May 8 (Reuters) - SoftBank Group (9984.T), opens new tab has downsized plans for a $10 billion margin loan backed by its OpenAI stake after hesitation from some creditors, Bloomberg News reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter. Softbank and bankers have mentioned in discussions plans to revise the target to an amount as low as $6 billion, the report said. The group's initial ⁠pitch had investors concerned about the difficulty of reaching a valuation for an unlisted company like ChatGPT maker OpenAI, the report said. Reuters could not immediately verify the report. SoftBank and OpenAI did not immediately respond to Reuters' requests for comment on the story. A margin loan is when an investor borrows from a lender to invest in securities, using the purchased investments ⁠as collateral. The two-year margin loan would carry an option for SoftBank to extend the tenure by an additional year, Bloomberg had earlier reported in April. While discussions are ongoing, details such as the ⁠eventual size of any borrowing could change, the report added. SoftBank has invested in OpenAI since September 2024. In January 2025, the ⁠two companies also teamed up on Stargate, a U.S. artificial intelligence infrastructure project. The Japanese investment conglomerate said in March it had ⁠secured a $40 billion bridge loan to bolster investments in OpenAI and for general corporate purposes. Reporting by Preetika Parashuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala and Harikrishnan Nair Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab

SoftBank cuts OpenAI-backed margin loan target by 40% to $6bn

Lenders pushed back on valuing OpenAI shares as collateral. The downsize lands a fortnight after the $10bn ask first surfaced and is the clearest signal yet that even an $852bn primary round has not closed the gap between sticker and what banks will lend against. SoftBank Group has trimmed the size of a margin loan it is trying to raise against its OpenAI stake to as little as $6bn, down from the $10bn it originally pitched, after several creditors balked at the valuation, Bloomberg reported on Friday. The Tokyo-listed conglomerate and bankers running the syndication have spent recent weeks separately walking lenders through a smaller transaction, according to Bloomberg's sources. Discussions are continuing, and the final size could change again. Pricing has not been re-disclosed; the original pitch carried an indicative margin of around 425 basis points over SOFR, which would put the borrowing rate near 7.9% at current rates. The borrowing structure is unusual for SoftBank, not in scale but in collateral. Margin loans against listed shares are a standard treasury tool. Margin loans against private-company stakes, even very large ones, are less so, and pricing them depends on a creditor's confidence that the underlying valuation will hold under stress and that recourse is meaningful if it does not. OpenAI's $852bn post-money valuation, struck in March's primary round, is recent and large; lenders SoftBank's original $10bn margin-loan ask against it were already conservative on advance rates, with terms reflecting a substantial haircut. The further downsizing suggests the haircut they are willing to apply has widened. Two pieces of evidence sit in the lender's file. First, the secondary market. Reported price talk on OpenAI secondary lots since the primary close has skewed below the $852bn mark, with sellers outnumbering buyers by roughly five to one in some recent venues. Second, the volume of debt SoftBank has already piled on against its position. The group secured a $40bn bridge for the latest OpenAI follow-on and is using OpenAI shares to leverage a tertiary pot on top. Each new layer reduces the cushion banks have if a mark-to-market shock hits the collateral. S&P lowered SoftBank's credit outlook last month, citing concerns that the scale of OpenAI exposure could impair the group's liquidity and the credit quality of its broader asset base. The agency did not flag the margin loan specifically; it would not have needed to. The directional signal is the same. SoftBank's cumulative committed exposure to OpenAI will reach roughly $64.6bn once the latest $30bn follow-on closes, giving the group around 13% of the company. To get to that number, Masayoshi Son sold the entire Nvidia stake (about $5.83bn) and the residual T-Mobile holding (about $12.73bn) between June and December 2025, then borrowed the $40bn bridge it secured to fund the OpenAI follow-on, syndicated across eight banks. Group debt now sits at roughly ¥20.45 trillion ($135bn). The downsized margin loan would push that further, but would do so at the most opportunistic point in the structure: collateralised, drawable, and refinanceable rather than baked into long-dated bonds. The capital is being deployed at a comparable cadence. Beyond the OpenAI round itself, SoftBank has put money into Stargate, the joint AI infrastructure vehicle with OpenAI and Oracle, and into adjacent infrastructure, such as converting a Sharp LCD factory into a battery plant for AI data centres. Each of those commitments needs cash within a multi-quarter window. SoftBank is not short of liquidity. The group has access to debt across several tenors and has historically been able to refinance through the cycle. The interest in this margin-loan story is not whether the firm closes it at $6bn, $8bn, or back at $10bn, but what the trajectory says about how the financing world is now valuing OpenAI relative to its primary marks. Two readings sit on the table. The benign one is that creditors are being procedurally cautious about a young collateral class and that the haircut will compress as OpenAI ages and a more public valuation tape emerges. The less benign one is that the secondary-market pricing is right and the primary round was already an outlier; in that case, the asset base of the entire SoftBank-OpenAI thesis is worth materially less than the headline. Neither reading is provable today. Both will get tested when SoftBank reports earnings in early August, when OpenAI is expected to disclose updated revenue figures, and when the next secondary lot clears. A close at $6bn at the original 425bps spread, or a wider spread for the same size, will both reflect the true cost of borrowing against private AI equity. Second, whether other holders of OpenAI stock try similar facilities. A ndreessen Horowitz and D. E. Shaw Ventures are recent buyers; their treasury teams will be watching SoftBank's process closely. Third, OpenAI's own posture. The company has so far supported its investors' use of its shares as collateral; if pricing deteriorates further, that posture could change.

SoftBank Scales Back Planned $10 Billion OpenAI Margin Loan After Lender Pushback: Report - SoftBank Grou

According to a Bloomberg report on Friday, the Japanese investment giant and its bankers have discussed reducing the target size of the loan to as low as $6 billion, down from an initial goal of $10 billion. Discussions with potential creditors are ongoing, and the final amount could still change, the report said. SoftBank and OpenAI did not immediately respond to Benzinga's requests for comment. SoftBank's AI Bet Grows The proposed financing would use SoftBank's investment in OpenAI as collateral. Some lenders were said to be cautious about assigning a reliable valuation to the ChatGPT maker, given that OpenAI remains unlisted, according to the report. The two-year margin loan would include an option for SoftBank to extend the term by an additional year, Bloomberg had reported last month. The development comes as scrutiny grows around the economics of the AI boom and whether massive investments in the sector will translate into profits anytime soon. SoftBank founder Masayoshi Son has aggressively expanded the group's AI exposure, funding billions of dollars in OpenAI investments through debt financing. The company first invested in OpenAI in September 2024 and later partnered with the startup on Stargate, a large-scale U.S. AI infrastructure initiative announced in January 2025. The company recently committed another $30 billion to OpenAI after previously investing more than that amount. In March, SoftBank secured a $40 billion bridge loan -- its largest-ever dollar-denominated borrowing -- partly to fund the latest investment. In early March, S&P downgraded SoftBank's credit rating, citing that the additional investment would "further reduce SoftBank Group's financial capacity." Concerns Mount Around OpenAI's Growth OpenAI, with a current valuation of $852 billion, needs substantial funding to continue developing its AI models, while paying for its vast computing needs, and retaining top talent in a competitive market. Image via Shutterstock Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs To add Benzinga News as your preferred source on Google, click here.

SoftBank Cuts OpenAI-Backed Loan Target to $6B Amid Lender Caution

SoftBank Group has cut the target for a planned OpenAI-backed margin loan from $10 billion to as low as $6 billion, according to Bloomberg News. The change points to growing caution among lenders as they review the risks tied to private artificial intelligence assets. The loan remains under discussion, so the final amount may still change. Even so, the reduced target shows that banks want a larger safety margin before lending against SoftBank's OpenAI stake. The main concern centers on valuation, since OpenAI does not trade on a public exchange.