SoftBank Group has resumed negotiations with a consortium of banks over a $10 billion margin loan, this time with a concession designed to address the lenders’ concerns: the company is offering to secure the financing with its stake in OpenAI and, for the first time, to guarantee repayment from SoftBank itself. The talks, reported on July 2, involve banks expected to include Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Mizuho Financial Group, and the money would support SoftBank’s continuing push into artificial-intelligence investment.
The change in terms is the story. Earlier attempts to raise the loan foundered on a single issue: the banks were uncomfortable lending against the value of a stake in a private company, whose valuation is set by private transactions rather than public markets, and they wanted recourse beyond the collateral itself. The original proposal would have pledged the OpenAI stake as the only security, and the loan size was cut to about $6 billion before talks stalled. The new approach adds SoftBank’s own guarantee — a promise that the group, not just the stake, stands behind the debt.
The guarantee addresses the banks’ deepest worry. A margin loan against private-company stock is only as good as the collateral’s value, and if OpenAI’s valuation fell — or if the stake proved hard to sell in a crisis — the lenders would be left holding an asset of uncertain worth. With a SoftBank guarantee, the banks gain a claim on one of the world’s largest investment groups, whose balance sheet includes stakes in chip designer Arm, telecom assets, and a portfolio of technology companies. The structure does not eliminate the risk, but it changes who carries it.
The stake itself is a prize. SoftBank has been building its OpenAI position aggressively, with commitments to invest as much as $65 billion in the company by October, and its holding is one of the most valuable private-technology stakes in the world. Using it as collateral lets SoftBank raise cash without selling — a critical advantage for a group that believes the value will keep rising. The loan would give SoftBank the liquidity to pursue new investments, including its plans to build a U.S. AI cloud business through SB Neo, without reducing its exposure to OpenAI.
The banks’ participation is not assured. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Mizuho are in discussions, according to people familiar with the matter, but the terms are still being negotiated, and the deal could shrink again or fail altogether. The lenders will be weighing the strength of the guarantee against the volatility of the collateral, and they will be watching OpenAI’s own trajectory — its fundraising, its spending, and its relationship with the U.S. government — as closely as they watch SoftBank’s. Margin loans of this size are rare, and the market for them is cautious.
The context for the talks has changed since the earlier attempt. OpenAI’s valuation has continued to climb, and the company’s discussions with Washington — including a reported proposal to give the U.S. government a 5% stake — have added a layer of political significance to its financial structure. For SoftBank, the stake has become the centerpiece of its AI strategy, the asset that connects its investments in OpenAI, Arm, and its cloud ambitions. Borrowing against it is the natural next step for a group that has consistently used its portfolio to fund new bets.
The structure of the financing, if completed, will be studied across the industry. Loans backed by private-company equity have grown as the technology sector’s most valuable companies have stayed private longer, but they remain risky instruments: the collateral cannot be marked to market daily, and the exit path — an IPO, a sale, or a secondary transaction — determines when the lenders get their money back. SoftBank’s willingness to guarantee repayment is an acknowledgment of those risks, and a signal that it expects the value of its OpenAI stake to be vindicated.
For SoftBank’s chairman, the loan is part of a familiar playbook. The group has repeatedly borrowed against its holdings to fund new investments, and it has repeatedly been rewarded when the market agreed with its valuations — and punished when it did not. The difference this time is the scale and the centrality of the asset: a $10 billion loan against OpenAI is a bet that the AI boom has years to run, and that the company at the center of it will be worth more tomorrow than it is today.
The talks also matter for the broader AI financing ecosystem. If SoftBank can borrow $10 billion against a private AI stake, other investors will conclude that such stakes can be turned into cash — unlocking new sources of capital for the entire sector. If the deal shrinks again, the message is the opposite: the market for AI collateral remains thin, and even the best-known stakes have limits. The negotiations, in other words, are a test of how much the financial system believes in the AI boom’s durability.
The outcome will be visible in the coming weeks. The banks are expected to make their decisions on the basis of the current terms, and SoftBank has shown it is willing to adjust the structure to get the deal done. What has changed since the last attempt is the offer itself: a guarantee from the group, a stake that has grown more valuable, and a borrower more determined than ever to finance its AI ambitions at scale.
