SoftBank cuts OpenAI margin loan target from $10bn to $6bn
TL;DR:
- SoftBank Group has downsized plans for a $10 billion margin loan backed by its OpenAI stake after creditor hesitation, with discussions now pointing to a target as low as $6 billion, Bloomberg News reported on Friday.
- Lenders flagged the difficulty of valuing OpenAI as an unlisted company in the underwriting process, the report said.
- Resultsense view: this is the most concrete signal yet that the bank-debt side of AI finance is tightening, even as equity valuations for frontier labs continue climbing — a useful counter to the loudest “AI capital is infinite” framing.
A margin loan uses purchased securities as collateral, so the size of the loan depends on the lender’s willingness to underwrite a valuation for the asset. In OpenAI’s case that asset is a stake in a private company that has been at the centre of public debate about whether AI valuations are sustainable.
What is being scaled back
The original $10 billion pitch involved a two-year facility with an option to extend by a third year. Bloomberg’s reporting says SoftBank and its bankers have discussed cutting the target to as little as $6 billion in response to creditor concerns about pricing the underlying OpenAI stake. SoftBank and OpenAI did not respond to Reuters’ requests for comment, and Reuters could not independently verify the Bloomberg account.
SoftBank’s wider OpenAI exposure
SoftBank first invested in OpenAI in September 2024 and is one of the largest backers of the Stargate US AI infrastructure programme announced jointly with OpenAI in January 2025. In March, the Japanese investment conglomerate said it had secured a $40 billion bridge loan to fund OpenAI investments and general corporate purposes — that bridge facility is separate from the margin loan now being trimmed.
The pullback is notable because it is the lenders, not SoftBank, who are forcing the rethink. Earlier this week Reuters also reported Anthropic was weighing fundraising at a valuation approaching $1 trillion, illustrating that equity sentiment for frontier labs remains strong even as credit committees become more selective.
UK relevance
For UK pension funds, insurers and credit allocators with growing private-AI exposure, the more important number to watch is not the headline valuation of any one frontier lab but the spread between what equity investors will underwrite and what debt investors will. The SoftBank-OpenAI margin loan being repriced down by up to 40% — while not finalised — is the first widely-reported instance of that spread widening materially in 2026. UK financial supervisors have been clear in recent communications that AI-linked private-credit exposure is on their monitoring radar, even if it has not yet shown up as a systemic concern.
Looking forward
Watch for whether the loan completes at the lower $6 billion target or is restructured again. Either outcome will shape lender pricing for the next round of frontier-lab credit facilities — including those being assembled around new compute deals such as Anthropic’s reported $1.8 billion Akamai agreement.