SoftBank Group has attracted more than twenty billion dollars of preliminary orders for a high-yield bond offering that could rank among the largest junk deals on record, as investors position for yields that may touch ten percent on the longest dollar tranche. The non-binding indications arrived ahead of pricing expected Thursday, though the company insists it has no plans to increase the launch size of ten billion dollars and one billion euros.
The terms on the table
The longest dollar note, a 7.5-year maturity, was discussed with investors at a yield of about ten percent, while the six-year euro tranche was sounded out in the mid-eight percent area. If those levels hold, they would set records for yield at those tenors in their respective currencies. The company has not yet entered initial price guidance, and the people familiar with the matter cautioned that details could shift before final pricing.
The OpenAI funding stack
The bond sale sits inside a broader financing campaign that has already produced nearly twenty-one billion dollars in fresh borrowing capacity this month alone. SoftBank increased a margin loan backed by Arm Holdings shares by five billion dollars to twenty-five billion, added four hundred fifty million dollars to an existing credit facility for a six-and-a-half-billion-dollar total, and is in talks with Apollo Global Management to expand a loan by three-point-six billion dollars to nine billion. An eleven-point-eight-seven-billion-dollar loan closed earlier to support the same OpenAI commitment. The conglomerate has pledged close to sixty-five billion dollars to the ChatGPT creator, making it one of the largest AI investors globally.
What the banks are saying
Citigroup leads the dollar tranche as bookrunner and joint global coordinator alongside Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley. JPMorgan leads the euro portion with Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank as coordinators. All four banks declined to comment on the record. A SoftBank representative confirmed the launch amounts and described demand as substantial, adding that any discussion of upsizing is pure speculation at this stage.
What to watch Thursday
Investor calls continue Tuesday before the deal moves to formal guidance. The scale of early interest suggests the market is willing to absorb significant high-yield supply from a single credit, but the final coupon will reveal whether the record-yield talk was a genuine ceiling or a marketing anchor. With almost fifteen billion dollars of notes already sold across currencies this year, SoftBank is testing the limits of junk-market capacity in a single season.