2026-09-04 — SoftBank’s record ¥1tn retail bond priced at 4.75%, the top of its guided range

• SoftBank Group priced its record ¥1 trillion ($6.3bn) 7-year retail bond at a 4.75% coupon, landing at the top of the 4.3-4.9% indicative range disclosed 08-24 rather than in the middle or bottom of it. That coupon is more than double the 2.3% year-to-date average for comparable yen retail corporate bonds — a direct price on the credit risk investors now attach to SoftBank’s AI-concentration bet, and the top-of-range landing reads as the market demanding real compensation rather than SoftBank’s brand pricing power carrying the deal. Context: yen retail-bond issuance overall has hit ¥2.88tn year-to-date, already a record for any full year, and a Nomura credit analyst framed the size and yield as likely to “draw new individual investors into the market” — this deal isn’t happening in isolation, it’s riding a broader retail-bond wave in Japan. (Bloomberg, corroborated: Briefs.co)

2026-08-27 (late catch, added 2026-08-29) — The concentration bet generalizes: SoftBank moves on an OpenAI-backed robotics startup too

• SoftBank is negotiating to buy majority/controlling ownership of 1X, an OpenAI-backed humanoid-robotics startup, in a deal reported around a $6 billion valuation — first reported by The Information (08-27), with Reuters, Axios and Nikkei Asia carrying it through 08-29. This is a new axis of concentration for this thread, arriving the same week SoftBank is stacking a second $10bn loan against its OpenAI stake (below): Son extending SoftBank’s AI-adjacent bet-sizing into a second OpenAI-linked company, rather than just deeper into OpenAI itself — one source frames it as Son’s “grand return to the humanoid robot sector.” ⚠️ Coverage headlines a “$6 billion discount” but does not consistently establish what prior valuation that discount is measured against; treat $6bn as the reported deal valuation, not a confirmed markdown amount. Single-original-source (The Information), not a filing or company statement. (Reuters, via pickups)

2026-08-28 — Borrowing against the OpenAI stake rather than selling it

SoftBank is raising a reported $10bn two-year facility secured against its OpenAI stake at roughly SOFR+275bps, with Mizuho as lead arranger and proceeds likely earmarked to refinance its existing $40bn OpenAI bridge loan. Borrowing against the position rather than trimming it is the substantive point — it keeps this thread’s premise literally intact while stacking a second layer of leverage on a holding that is itself the collateral. ⚠️ Single-outlet and reported rather than filed. ⚠️ Reported at 02:50 ET on 08-28 and missed by this map’s own 10:15 ET run, recovered on the afternoon pass.

2026-08-26 — The second leg is a 144A — the first international one in over a decade

• SoftBank’s prospective $10-20bn second bond leg is a Rule 144A offering, its first international 144A in more than ten years, floated to help refinance the $40bn bridge loan behind an OpenAI commitment approaching $65bn. The structure matters more than the size: 144A puts the paper before US institutional buyers without a public registration, which is how a junk-rated issuer raises this much this quickly, and it is a different investor base from the Japanese retail bid the ¥1 trillion tranche targets. Its existing 8.5% 2036 notes fell as much as 2.5 cents to ~98 on the day — their steepest single-day move since April. SoftBank’s own spokesperson: “we are considering various options… but nothing has been decided, including the amount for each.” (Bloomberg, SoftBank IR, outstanding bonds)

2026-08-24 (late catch, added 2026-08-25) — The record bond gets its terms, and a reason it had to be retail

• The ¥1 trillion ($6.3bn) retail bond filed on 08-23 now has a schedule and a price: 7-year paper, an indicative coupon of 4.3–4.9%, priced 09-04, offered 09-07 to 09-16, issued 09-17, maturing 2033-09-16. It is the largest retail bond offering ever by a Japanese company, nearly double SoftBank’s own ¥600bn record from April 2025. Bloomberg’s reporting supplies the part that matters to this thread: analysts say banks were reluctant to take the risk, which is why the deal depends on retail investors. The proceeds are tied to the $30bn additional OpenAI commitment — $20bn funded in April and July, $10bn scheduled for October. A near-5% coupon on retail money, sold because the institutional bid wasn’t there, is a directly observable price on the risk the loan stack has been accumulating. Cross-refs Circular Financing. (Bloomberg, Nikkei Asia)

2026-08-23 — SoftBank files for a record ¥1 trillion retail bond, tied to OpenAI and Stargate funding

• SoftBank filed for a record ¥1 trillion retail bond issue, which every outlet covering it ties to funding Masayoshi Son’s OpenAI and Stargate commitments — a new domestic-retail leg on the loan stack this thread already tracks (the $40B OpenAI bridge, the $10B OpenAI-collateral margin loan, the Nvidia-guaranteed Ohio campus). This is the regulatory filing itself, distinct from the 08-20 announcement of the plan already on this thread’s record. (TradingView, filing report, 2026-08-24T00:21Z = 20:21 ET on 08-23 · WSJ, 07:31Z)
• ⚠️ The dollar figure stays unpinned here, deliberately. Outlets carry both ~$6.3bn and ~$8bn for the same ¥1 trillion, and the primary filing text was unreachable to check the FX assumption behind either conversion. The yen figure (¥1 trillion) is confirmed; no single USD number is asserted.

2026-08-07 — A political-influence angle opens on the Ohio Stargate-adjacent campus: a $50M Trump-library donation preceded the federal lease by two months

• SoftBank confirmed it donated $50M to Trump’s presidential library in January 2026 — two months before the administration announced the federal land-lease deal for SoftBank’s 10GW Portsmouth, Ohio data center (the same campus this thread already tracks as the site Nvidia may guarantee $250-500B against). SoftBank disclosed the timing itself, in response to a June 2026 oversight letter from Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Rep. Melanie Stansbury (D-NM). Warren’s quote to The Verge makes the question explicit: “Are we expected to believe it’s a coincidence that two months after SoftBank donated $50 million to the Trump library, his administration announced a massive lease deal for SoftBank’s data center?” This is a new axis on the thread — political influence over how the Ohio campus got approved — distinct from the financing/ collateral mechanics already logged here. (The Verge, Washington Post)

2026-08-06 — The Q1 FY26 print lands: net profit down 18%, Arm’s post-earnings slide erases ¥14T of pro-forma NAV, and the stalled $10B OpenAI-collateral loan gets signed

• SoftBank Group’s Q1 FY2026 (quarter to 2026-06-30) results, released as scheduled 2026-08-06 JST: net income ¥347.3B, down 18% YoY (from ¥421.8B) despite investment gains surging roughly 300% YoY to ¥1.86T — the gain was almost entirely ByteDance (¥2,221M of a ¥2,394M SVF1 quarterly gain) and Intel (¥1.33T of unrealized gains), not OpenAI, which recorded no valuation gain this quarter. SoftBank Group shares fell 4.41% on the print itself, reversing the pre-print rally recorded here 08-05. (Investing.com, Daily Sabah)
• This directly answers the “Arm’s post-earnings slide” ledger question: quarter-end NAV hit a record ¥72.3T ($445.2B) as of 06-30, but a same-release pro-forma mark as of 08-05 shows NAV down to ¥58.3T — a ¥14T (~19%) reduction — driven specifically by Arm’s own contribution to that NAV falling from ¥43.4T to ¥31.1T. Arm’s own Q1 print (07-29) beat on revenue ($1.29B, +22% YoY) and EPS ($0.45), but shares still fell ~8% same-day and continued sliding into August (−3.15% on 08-05) on a supply-demand mismatch (AGI CPU demand >$2B vs ~$1B secured supply) and smartphone-royalty softness — that slide is what shows up as the ¥14T NAV cut. ⚠ The pro-forma figure is single-sourced (Investing.com); treat as directionally confirmed, not exchange-verified. (Investing.com, TIKR)
• The second ledger item resolves too: the OpenAI-stake margin loan that stayed “stalled on valuation concerns” as of 08-03 is now signed. Bloomberg (08-06): SoftBank secured a $10B, two-year margin loan against its OpenAI stake, agreed 2026-08-05 with Goldman Sachs Bank USA, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, Mizuho Securities USA, Apollo Global Funding and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp, with drawdown planned this month. Combined with the $30B already funneled to OpenAI via Vision Fund 2 and the existing $40B bridge loan, SoftBank’s total OpenAI-linked commitments now exceed $60B — cumulative OpenAI investment is reported at $32.4B as of 03-31-2026, projected to $64.6B by 10-01-2026 for roughly a 13% stake, consistent with the three $10B tranches (04-01, 07-01, planned 10-01) already on this thread’s record. (Bloomberg)
• Balance-sheet detail: cash fell to ¥2.3T from ¥3.5T; loan-to-value stayed at 13%, well inside the self-imposed 25% cap — the $30B H2-2026 obligation flagged 08-04 is still outstanding and unaddressed by this print. CFO Goto pushed back on bubble framing on the earnings call: “There’s clear demand and an overwhelming shortage of supply” on AI datacenter buildout, “I think we’re in a very healthy state.” (Daily Sabah)

2026-08-05 — Arm’s 17% US rally plus a SoftBank Corp beat send SoftBank Group up ~12%, one trading day ahead of the FY26 Q1 print

• SoftBank Group Corp (9984) shares jumped 11.7-13% to ¥5,840-5,841, driven by Arm surging over 17% overnight on US markets (optimism on higher AI-datacenter royalties and new CPU plans) plus SoftBank Corp (9434, the telecom subsidiary — a different entity from this thread’s Vision Fund/Arm/OpenAI holding company, per the 08-03 entity-guard note) reporting Q1 operating profit of ¥302.3B, ~10% above the ¥275.54B consensus, on 31% YoY AI/cloud-segment revenue growth and a reaffirmed ~30% CAGR guide for AI/cloud through FY2027. (Investing.com, TradingKey)
• This is a pre-print sentiment rally, not the Group’s own results — the SoftBank Group FY26 Q1 earnings this thread is tracking still print tomorrow, 08-06, as already confirmed 08-04; today’s move is Arm-and-subsidiary-driven, one trading session ahead of the number that actually resolves the loan-stack/AI-credit question this thread watches.

2026-08-04 — How the bet is funded, the “Physical AI” fourth lever, and Vision Fund’s real concentration

• SoftBank sold its entire Nvidia stake — 32.1M shares, $5.83B — disclosed 2025-11-11 (shares sold Oct 2025), proceeds earmarked toward the OpenAI investment; it also sold part of its T-Mobile stake for $9.17B in the same round. This is the funding side of the loan stack the thread already tracks — SoftBank isn’t only pledging assets as collateral, it’s actively liquidating legacy holdings. (CNBC)
• A self-imposed 25% loan-to-value limit is constraining further margin borrowing, and independent credit research (CreditSights) sizes a $32B funding gap over the next two years, combining bond maturities with signed obligations including the ABB Robotics deal below; $30B specifically falls due in H2 2026. (ad-hoc-news.de)
• A fourth lever alongside OpenAI/Arm/Stargate: SoftBank is acquiring ABB’s robotics division for $5.375B (board-approved 2025-09-22, signed 2025-10-08, closing mid-to-late 2026), folding it into a new US-listed spinout called Roze — autonomous robots building AI data centers — targeting an IPO as early as H2 2026 at up to a $100B valuation (KPMG engaged; analyst day held July 2026). (SoftBank Group, Yahoo Finance)
• Vision Fund’s FY2025 (year to March 2026) ~$46B gain and the Q4/Q3 gains before it were “nearly all driven by OpenAI” — SoftBank took losses in the same periods on Coupang, DiDi Global, Klarna and a ByteDance markdown. CFO Yoshimitsu Goto: ~60% of SoftBank’s total assets are now “ASI-oriented investments.” Answers this thread’s open question on whether Vision Fund is a real hedge: it functions as a single concentrated position wearing a diversified-fund wrapper. (CNBC)
• Credit ratings are diverging, not moving together: Moody’s upgraded SoftBank Group to Ba2/stable on 2025-09-17 (leverage reduction, transparency); S&P instead revised its outlook to negative in March 2026, explicitly over running a ~¥2.5T ($24B) buyback alongside ~$41B of asset-sale fundraising. (Bloomberg, S&P Global Ratings)
• Market is pricing real stress ahead of the 08-06 print: stock down ~50% since early June 2026 despite three straight quarters of large EPS beats each followed by a stock decline (“beat-and-drop”); Deutsche Bank downgraded to Hold; CDS costs on SoftBank debt have risen; a technical “dead cross” formed 2026-07-28 ahead of the 2.6% Arm-sympathy drop already on this thread’s 07-30/08-01 entries. (Investing.com)
• Confirmed: the 08-06 Group print has not happened yet as of 2026-08-04 (3-day GDELT sweep found no contradicting report); the SoftBank Corp/SoftBank Group entity-guard trap this thread flagged 08-03 is still live in the wires today. Arm ownership, primary-sourced: Arm’s own SEC 6-K filing puts SoftBank’s beneficial stake at ~86.4% as of 2026-05-21 — close to, but below, the 87.1% currently on the board. (SEC EDGAR)
• Son’s own framing treats the concentration as deliberate, not incidental: the strategy is branded internally as “Izanagi” (single- source, unconfirmed) and at a shareholder meeting Son said “SoftBank’s mission is to drive human evolution and realize ASI,” predicting ASI “10,000 times smarter than humans within a decade.”

Full sourcing and confidence levels: artifacts/findings/softbank-2026-08-04.md and artifacts/bundles/softbank-2026-08-04/provenance.yaml.

2026-08-03 — The one OpenAI-collateral loan lenders won’t extend, ahead of the 08-06 print

• SoftBank’s $6–10B OpenAI-stake margin loan stays stalled — distinct from the funded $40B OpenAI bridge (March 2027 maturity), the separate margin loan against the OpenAI stake remains stalled on “valuation concerns” (halted 06-10, renewed talks 07-01, no resolution), a lenders’-eye read on the OpenAI valuation as collateral, as Arm weakness compresses SoftBank’s NAV into Thursday’s 08-06 print. (Invezz/Investing.com; SoftBank IR, 08-03)
• ⚠ Entity guard: the “record SoftBank Q1” on the overnight wires is SoftBank Corp (9434), not SoftBank Group (9984) — the domestic telecom carrier reported revenue ¥1,814.7B (+9% YoY) and operating income ¥302.3B on AI/cloud/financial-services strength. That is a different listed company from the Vision Fund/Arm/OpenAI holding vehicle this thread tracks, which reported nothing overnight and still prints 08-06. Moderate-confidence sourcing (wire pickups of an earnings-call transcript).
• 💡 Worth writing down as a standing trap: the two entities share a brand, a founder and a reporting season, and only one of them is the AI-financing story. Any “SoftBank beats” headline needs its ticker checked before it touches this thread.

2026-08-01 — The $40B OpenAI bridge loan’s full structure, ahead of the 08-06 print

• The $40B bridge loan splits $30B flowing to OpenAI via Vision Fund 2 and $10B for general corporate use, drawn in $10B tranches on 2026-04-01, 2026-07-01 and a scheduled 2026-10-01. (Bloomberg)
• Lead arrangers are JPMorgan, Goldman Sachs, Mizuho, SMBC and MUFG; the 07-27 syndication allocated roughly $7B across 21 new lenders, with First Abu Dhabi Bank, GIC and Standard Chartered each taking about $1B. (Bloomberg)
• Effective interest cost is reported at approximately 6.14% (SOFR plus roughly 250bps), with the loan maturing 2027-03-25 — the maturity date matches what this thread already had on record; the interest cost is new. (Bloomberg)
• Arm’s most recent quarterly print — record revenue of $1.289B, +22% — was followed by shares falling about 7% after hours to $209 on GAAP operating margin compression to 7.1% from 10.8%; SoftBank fell 3.2% to ¥6,367 in the following session, compounded by an HSBC downgrade. ⚠ These price moves are secondary-sourced and not exchange-verified.

2026-07-31 — Q1 earnings date was wrong (real date 08-06); stock hits limit-up on the Tokyo AI rally

• The ledger’s SoftBank Q1 FY26 earnings date was wrong, not slipped — SoftBank’s own IR page shows the Q1 FY2026 briefing scheduled for 2026-08-06 (report disclosed 3:30pm JST, briefing 4:30pm JST); all Q1 materials still show placeholders as of this check. The prior 07-30 date traced to a single uncorroborated secondary source. (SoftBank Group IR)
• SoftBank shares hit the exchange’s daily limit-up (+12-15%, to ~5,322 yen) and Arm rose 9% overnight, part of a broad Tokyo AI/semiconductor rally (Nikkei 225 +4.37%, Advantest and Tokyo Electron also limit-up) triggered by strong US tech earnings — reversing the “rotation away from chips” framing that closed out 07-29’s Arm earnings coverage one trading day later, independent of SoftBank’s own still-unreported results. (Bloomberg Japan, Nikkei)

2026-07-28 — The bridge widens, and gets a maturity date

• SoftBank’s $40B bridge loan against its OpenAI stake added 21 new lenders (reported 07-27, caught here by the cold rotation) — the syndicate widening rather than the exposure shrinking. (Bloomberg)
• It matures 2027-03-25 — now a ledger entry, because that date is a hard clock on the position and it falls before the 2027 window analysts are converging on for an OpenAI listing. Refinance, repay or extend: whichever happens, it dates the liquidity story this thread tracks.

2026-07-27 — The stack, assembled

• The concentration picture (pieces from stargate-buildout, openai-ipo-timing, arm-royalty-regime, intel-rescue — first drawn together here): the $40B OpenAI-stake loan added 21 lenders (Standard Chartered, GIC named; expanding, not closed) · the 10GW Ohio Stargate campus is the asset Nvidia may guarantee $250-500B against · Arm’s 87.1% pledged as collateral ($5B loan sought Oct-25; a $20B margin loan hit a Dec-25 deadline, outcome unresolved) · $2B into Intel (backing Tan personally) · a renewed $10B OpenAI-collateral loan (Jul-26). Everything collateralizes everything else — the empire is one correlated bet on AI credit staying open.