SoftBank stock rises as $10B OpenAI-backed loan talks resume

SoftBank has reopened talks with lenders for a $10 billion margin loan secured by its stake in OpenAI, and reports of the talks lifted the company’s shares. Potential lenders include Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Mizuho Financial Group. SoftBank’s stock rose 2.3% to ¥6,137, compared with a 0.5% gain in the Nikkei 225.

A margin loan is borrowing backed by financial assets. Here the asset would be equity in privately held OpenAI. Private stakes are harder for banks to value and harder to sell quickly than listed shares.

An earlier attempt to secure similar financing was scaled back to about $6 billion after lenders expressed concern about taking only OpenAI shares as collateral. SoftBank is offering a corporate guarantee so lenders could seek repayment from SoftBank itself if the pledged stake proves insufficient.

SoftBank has committed more than $60 billion to OpenAI and related AI infrastructure, including the Stargate data centre partnership with OpenAI and Oracle. The company has used debt and asset-backed financing for those investments and earlier arranged a $40 billion bridge loan.

The revived talks test how much value banks assign to a private OpenAI stake and whether they will accept private equity as primary collateral for large loans. Banks generally prefer listed assets because they can be priced and sold more readily.

Gil Luria, head of technology research at DA Davidson, called SoftBank a “highly leveraged bet on AI” and said the financing approach carries both upside and risk. Richard Windsor, founder of Radio Free Mobile, warned the company’s risk profile is rising and said “there could easily be a liquidity crunch at SoftBank” if OpenAI fails to meet expectations.

The talks follow the earlier, scaled-back effort and lenders are now weighing whether to proceed under the revised terms.