SoftBank Group is preparing to offer seven-year corporate bonds totaling about 1 trillion yen ($6.26 billion), aimed at Japanese retail investors. The deal would be the largest ever among similar offerings by Japanese companies.
The proceeds are expected to be used to redeem outstanding bonds and to fund mergers and acquisitions in the physical AI sector. Nikkei also suggested that SoftBank may use the funds to repay a short-term loan taken out for additional investment in OpenAI.
According to comments from private credit market participants cited by Reuters, this year AI-infrastructure-related debt accounts for up to 30% of net new issuance in some investment-grade indexes. Meanwhile, the spread on Nvidia’s 5-year credit default swap (CDS) exceeded its late-July peak.