Banks have been approached to commit around $5bn each to take on the role of sub-underwriter of the $40bn loan supporting SoftBank Group’s investment in OpenAI, 9fin sources said.
There will be general syndication of the loan in a later stage, the sources said.
Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Mizuho are the lead and structuring banks of the 364-day bullet term loan, which they underwrote with MUFG and SMBC.
Those five banks have prefunded the loan, the pricing for which will be linked to SoftBank Group’s credit rating, as 9fin reported earlier. The Tokyo-listed group is currently rated Ba2 by Moody’s and BB+ by S&P.
Apart from funding SoftBank’s investment in Open AI, proceeds will also be used to repay part of a $15bn loan the Japanese company obtained in April 2025 to support its $6.5bn acquisition of Ampere Computing.
SoftBank Group, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, and Mizuho did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Deal history
SoftBank signed an agreement on 27 February to make a total of $30bn in new investments in OpenAI via its SoftBank Vision Fund 2. The investment will be made through three tranches: $10bn each by 1 April, 1 July, and 1 October.
In December 2025, SoftBank said it had already made an initial investment of $30bn in OpenAI and that it held about 11% of shares in the ChatGPT developer.
