SoftBank Seeks Increased Financing for Its OpenAI Investment
SoftBank is in talks with Apollo Global Management to increase a loan facility from $5.4 billion to as much as $9 billion, potentially providing additional capital for its significant investment in OpenAI. The financing would be structured using NAV (Net Asset Value) lending, where fund investments are used as collateral. This move supports SoftBank's broader strategy of expanding into artificial intelligence and follows a recent $30 billion follow-on investment in OpenAI that gave the company a 13% ownership stake. Earlier this year, SoftBank also pursued a $10 billion margin loan to finance further investments. While S&P Global Ratings had previously downgraded SoftBank's credit rating due to concerns over its financial capacity and the quality of some investments like OpenAI, it recently revised the outlook for SoftBank Corp to stable from negative. SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son has expressed strong confidence in OpenAI’s future growth and emphasized that additional funding will help accelerate research and ecosystem development.
Topics: Apollo Global Management investment loans OpenAI SoftBank