SoftBank is seeking a further $10bn loan to fund its OpenAI stake, Bloomberg reported on Friday. It closed a loan of exactly that size, secured against the same asset, 22 days earlier.
TNW has not independently verified the report and could not review its full terms, so what follows sets the reported request against the public record of how SoftBank has financed this position. That record is unusually detailed, because almost every step of it has been reported as it happened.
Start with the obligation. SoftBank signed a $40bn unsecured bridge facility in March to fund its OpenAI commitments, and that facility has to be repaid or refinanced by March 2027.
A bridge is meant to be temporary by design, and the work of the past five months has been the search for something permanent to replace it. The group has committed more than $60bn to OpenAI and adjacent AI infrastructure, which is a large amount of exposure to hold on short-dated debt.
The margin loan was the first attempt at a durable answer. SoftBank approached lenders in April for $10bn secured on OpenAI shares, and ran straight into the problem with pledging a private company: nobody could agree what the collateral was worth.
