SoftBank Launches $10 Billion and €1 Billion of Notes to Fund OpenAI's Third Tranche

SoftBank Group Corp has launched $10 billion of dollar-denominated and €1 billion of euro-denominated senior unsecured notes to fund its investment in OpenAI, according to a term sheet seen by Reuters.

The dollar notes are split into 3-1/2-year, 5-1/2-year and 7-1/2-year tenors, while the euro bonds come in 4-year and 6-year tenors, per the term sheet. Citigroup and JPMorgan are lead bookrunners. The issues are expected to price on September 24 and settle on September 29.

Proceeds will fund SoftBank's $10 billion payment for the third tranche of its follow-on investment in OpenAI, expected to close on October 1, with the remainder available for general corporate purposes, the term sheet said. The bond sale is set to cancel a $10 billion bridge loan facility SoftBank had arranged for the OpenAI investment — swapping short-term acquisition financing for multi-year unsecured debt.

The third tranche completes a $30 billion follow-on commitment SoftBank announced on February 27. The second $10 billion tranche was executed on July 1 through SoftBank Vision Fund 2 into OpenAI Group PBC; that same day SoftBank drew $10 billion under a bridge facility agreement it had signed on March 27. The October 1 closing date could be accelerated if OpenAI Group PBC lists its shares publicly.

For investors, the structure is the story. SoftBank is giving its OpenAI bet permanent-capital treatment — terming out bridge debt across five tenors and two currencies rather than rolling it — and the pricing on September 24 will show what the market charges for AI-concentration risk on a Japanese conglomerate's balance sheet. It is also a measure of the AI capital cycle's scale: frontier-model funding rounds are now large enough to register in the investment-grade bond market.

SoftBank could not be reached for comment because of a holiday in Japan. The term sheet itself is not public, so every deal term here rests on Reuters' sighting of it; the official record so far is SoftBank's July 1 disclosure of the tranche schedule. Watch pricing on September 24 and the October 1 close.