SoftBank raises roughly $11 billion in junk bonds at record yields

SoftBank has been active in debt markets this year, and this offering is one of the largest junk-bond deals on record. The company's borrowing costs landed higher than what it has paid before, even though demand was strong enough to lower pricing from initial ranges. Orders for the $10 billion dollar portion exceeded $30 billion as of late afternoon Wednesday in Asia.

The deal arrived alongside a broader wave of AI-related borrowing. Global AI-related debt issuance has already topped $575 billion in 2026, according to a recent report by Goldman Sachs Group credit strategists, and some bond investors worry that this growing pile of debt could cause a hangover for markets if the technology fails to pay off for the firms making the biggest investments. That unease shows up in the market for SoftBank's credit default swaps, where the price to insure against a failure to pay over the next five years rose this month to its highest since April 2025, when the bank disclosed a $30 billion investment in OpenAI.

Masayoshi Son has downplayed concerns about AI infrastructure investments, saying earlier this year that he expects AI-related industries to account for 20% of global output by 2040, equivalent to $46 trillion. The stakes of this deal appear to hinge on whether that payoff materializes for the firms spending the most — and on whether credit investors keep absorbing the debt while they wait.