From our other sites
The story
SoftBank Group (SBG) announced on September 24 that it will raise a total of $11.1 billion (roughly ¥1.7 trillion) through dollar- and euro-denominated corporate bonds. Rates run from 8.625% on the 3.5-year notes to 9.25% on the 5.5-year notes and as high as 9.75% on the 7.5-year notes — reportedly the largest single issuance ever of so-called “junk bonds,” debt rated below investment grade. The funds raised are said to be earmarked for SoftBank’s massive investment in OpenAI. Reactions on the thread ranged from users weighing whether to buy in, betting on Masayoshi Son’s judgment, to widespread skepticism about the risk of OpenAI’s business collapsing — and questions about whether this is even something retail investors could buy in the first place.
SoftBank Group Decides on Foreign Bond Issuance — World’s Largest Low-Rated Offering, 9.75% Interest
SoftBank Group (SBG) announced on the 24th that it will raise a total of $11.1 billion (roughly ¥1.7 trillion) through dollar- and euro-denominated bond issuances, with rates as high as 9.75%. This looks set to be the largest-ever single issuance of speculative-grade, low-rated debt (“junk bonds”) in the world.
Full details at the source. 2026/9/24
Source: nikkei.com / Original article here
What people said
Guess I'm betting on Masayoshi Son's crazy luck
Aren't bonds like this usually only sold in ¥30 million lots? Maybe the big brokerages handle it in ¥10 million units
Wonder if SBI Securities offers smaller lots
Then just sell within 2 years
If you're thinking out to 2030 there's no way you can touch this
Bonds go up and down just like stocks, that's what makes them tricky
Can't sell it if nobody's buying
The guys who mocked 'Minna de Ooya-san' (note: a real-estate crowdfunding product that later ran into redemption trouble) obviously aren't touching this either, right? lol
Wasn't the 'Narita No. 1' fund in that same series never redeemed either?
Masayoshi Son somehow pulls it off
Actually, because of Son's pointless moves
he missed out on making something like ¥50 trillion he could've made
and out of that complex he went all-in on OpenAI and failed badly
People always counter with 'but he succeeded with Arm'
but that stake is hard to sell and cash out
it can basically only be used as collateral to borrow a bit of money from banks
that's why he's borrowing at high interest from all over the place
Not something Japanese retail investors can buy
Guess we're stuck making do with the 7-year at 4.75%
With 3.5 years there's a decent chance it survives, but since it's dollar-denominated the interest-rate differential would wipe out the gains anyway, so it's not really buyable
By 7 years you'll probably be dead anyway, so no point buying it
Hard to say
Treasuries lower your risk if you diversify across them, but buy just one outright and you're dead
If OpenAI doesn't get approved to IPO within six months this is instant death
And even if it does IPO, the stock crashing right after is a given, so it's completely cooked either way
No way that happens within six months
Sounds like Sanae Takaichi (note: Japanese politician known for her hardline, never-retreat image)
Of course — they're loving the weak yen
If it were yen-denominated at 9% everyone would buy it
High rates on foreign-currency bonds are a crapshoot because of FX swings
Best to just humbly take whatever scraps fall our way
If he could just borrow from some world-famous investor richer than 'Son-Loss-Yoshi,' he wouldn't need to bother issuing bonds at all
If he can actually raise the money through junk bonds, that's probably the best option, honestly
Once bond terms turn worse after issuance, or they can't be sold at all anymore
the next move is raising cash from investors via warrants (stock acquisition rights) or convertible bonds
Wouldn't a micro nuclear reactor do the trick? Basically the same tech as a nuclear sub.
Sounds like he wants a capital tie-up with TEPCO
https://gendai.media/articles/-/169746?imp=0
In the end it comes down to whether that power can be ready in time to keep pace with the chips' depreciation schedule, right…
Yeah, probably not.
Even with that insane interest rate?
High as it is, it's not that far off from other American corporate bonds.
Plenty of countries have deposit rates north of 10% even.
Japan itself had 10% mortgage rates back in the day too.
That's double Google's bond yield though
Even high-yield bond ETFs are only around 6% right now
Background and Key Points
High-yield bonds (aka “junk bonds”) are corporate bonds issued by companies whose credit rating falls below investment grade, with the interest rate set higher to compensate for default risk. SBG is structurally reliant on hard-to-cash-out assets — such as borrowing against its Arm shares as collateral — and keeps funding massive AI-related investments like its OpenAI stake through debt. Some posts in the thread lumped this together with small-lot retail products like “Minna de Ooya-san,” but that’s a common misunderstanding: institutional bonds like this one are typically traded in lots worth tens of millions of yen, not something individuals can buy directly in small amounts through a brokerage. OpenAI also isn’t publicly listed, so the path to recouping this investment depends either on the bonds being redeemed or on OpenAI’s own cash flow — and thread opinion was split between optimism about AI investment and the harsher reality of extending credit to a company that keeps posting losses.
*This article is compiled from excerpts and a summary of the 5channel (Breaking News+) thread “SoftBank Group Issues Bonds at Up to 9.75% Interest to Pay OpenAI $10 Billion — World’s Largest Single Junk Bond Offering.”
Leave a Reply