Lenders have backed away from valuing OpenAI shares as collateral. The price cut within two weeks of the $10bn bid first appearing is also a clear sign however that even the first round of $852bn has not closed the gap between the sticker and what banks will lend.
SoftBank Group has cut the size of the loan it’s trying to raise against its OpenAI stake to less than $6bn, down from $10bn it had originally set, after multiple creditors defaulted, Bloomberg reported on Friday.
The Tokyo-listed conglomerate and bankers that use the product have spent recent weeks parting ways with lenders using less capital, according to Bloomberg sources.
Negotiations are ongoing, and the final size may change as well. The price was not disclosed again; the original pitch carried an indicative margin of around 425 basis points over SOFR, which would put the borrowing rate at around 7.9% at current rates.
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The lending structure is unusual for SoftBank, not in scale but in collateral. A margin loan against listed shares is a common treasury tool.
Limited equity loans to private companies, even the largest ones, are very small, and their pricing depends on the lender’s confidence that the underlying valuation will be under stress and that the return is reasonable if not.
What do lenders defer to?
OpenAI’s $852bn post-money valuation, which came in March’s primary round, is recent and large; lenders SoftBank’s first request for a $10bn mortgage loan against it was already strong in the early stages, with terms that show a big haircut. Continued reductions suggest that the haircuts they are willing to use have been extended.
Two proofs remain in the lender’s file. First, the secondary market. Reported price talk for OpenAI’s second lot as the first close fell below the $852bn mark, with sellers outnumbering buyers by nearly five to one in some recent quarters. Second, the volume of debt SoftBank has already accumulated against its environment.
The group received a $40bn bridge to follow OpenAI recently and is using OpenAI shares to leverage the higher education pot. Each new layer reduces the banks cushion when a mark-to-market shock hits the collateral.
S&P downgraded SoftBank’s credit outlook last month, citing concerns that the level of exposure to OpenAI could hurt the group’s liquidity and the credit quality of its broader asset base.
The agency did not flag margin lending specifically; it wouldn’t be necessary. The direction signal is the same.
How much is the SoftBank-OpenAI stack now?
SoftBank’s exposure to OpenAI’s commitment will reach about $64.6bn once the latest $30bn follow-up closes, giving the group about 13% of the company.
To get to that number, Masayoshi Son sold all of Nvidia’s stake (about $5.83 billion) and the rest of T-Mobile it owned (about $12.73bn) between June and December 2025, then took out a loan. the $40 billion bridge it secured to fund the OpenAI follow-up, consolidated into eight banks.
The group’s debt now sits at about ¥20.45 trillion ($135bn). Discounted margin loans can facilitate that, but they will do so in a very opportunistic place in the structure: they are collateralized, deductible, and affordable instead of being baked into long-term bonds.
The capital is used in the same way. Beyond the OpenAI cycle itself, SoftBank has invested in Stargate, a joint AI infrastructure vehicle with OpenAI and Oracle, as well as adjacent infrastructure, such as. turning the Sharp LCD factory into a battery powerhouse for AI data centers. Each of those commitments requires cash between multiple windows.
SoftBank is not short of liquidity. The group has access to debt from several tectors and has historically been able to refinance this cycle.
The interest in this loan story is not whether the company closes it at $6bn, $8bn, or returns to $10bn, but what the trail says about how the funding world now views OpenAI relative to its core values.
Two subjects sit on the table. The good thing is that creditors are monitoring processes about the small collateral class and that haircuts will be compressed as OpenAI ages and public analysis tape emerges.
What’s not so good is that the prices in the secondary market are good and the first round was already foreign; in that case, the legacy of the entire SoftBank-OpenAI thesis is worth less than the title.
No learning is witnessed today. Both will be tested when SoftBank reports earnings in early August, when OpenAI is expected to disclose revised revenue figures, and when the next quarter is cleared.
A $6bn close to a real spread of 425bps, or a wider spread of the same size, would both reflect the real cost of borrowing against AI private equity. Second, or other OpenAI stockholders try similar services. A
ndreessen Horowitz and DE Shaw Ventures are recent buyers; their treasury teams will be watching SoftBank’s process closely.
Third, the position of OpenAI itself. The company has so far supported the use of its investors with its shares as collateral; if the price continues to deteriorate, that position may change.
Currently, the subject matter is less than a broad question. SoftBank wanted to borrow $10bn and is on track to borrow $6bn. A number tells a story; practice is what matters.
