SoftBank lost ¥1.1tn: no gain on OpenAI, US$3.7bn written off on power equipment

01Quarter and half-year are two different results

SoftBank’s financial year starts in April, so its second quarter is July to September. The company’s summary leads with the half: a ¥1.7tn investment gain and a ¥0.8tn net loss.² All of that gain came in April to June, when the investment line was ¥1,859.4bn. In July to September it was minus ¥133.6bn.²

The half-year gain is also mostly one share. Intel contributed ¥1,062.8bn of the ¥1,725.8bn: a gain of ¥1,332.9bn in the first quarter, then a loss of ¥270.1bn in the second.¹² The bottom line splits the same way: ¥347.3bn of profit in the first quarter, ¥1,115.3bn of loss in the second, and a ¥768.0bn loss for the six months against a profit of ¥2,924.1bn a year earlier.¹²

02What drove the loss

Gross profit of ¥1,143.4bn covered selling and administrative costs of ¥1,081.9bn with ¥61.5bn left over. Everything below that is financing, valuation and one-off items. Other losses came to ¥669.9bn, most of it the power-equipment charge. Finance cost was ¥461.9bn, more than two and a half times the year-earlier ¥174.7bn. The investment line took off another ¥133.6bn, and a foreign-exchange gain of ¥220.3bn gave part of that back. The pre-tax loss was ¥1,027.9bn.¹

The report explains the interest bill. SoftBank drew US$30.0bn of bridge loans in April and July, added a US$11.5bn margin loan on its Arm shares in December 2025, and carried more bonds at higher rates. When it repaid the remaining US$25.9bn of the bridge loans on 15 September, it recognised at once the unamortised costs it had planned to spread to March 2027.¹ It raised US$56.5bn in the quarter, which it calls a record, from borrowing (US$21.9bn), bonds (US$18.0bn) and what it calls asset monetisation (US$16.6bn).²

One figure on SoftBank’s own slide should be read with care. It flags a ¥321.9bn derivative loss on forward contracts over its Intel shares, raised in August.² The quarter’s whole derivative line is only ¥41.7bn, because a ¥274.7bn gain in SoftBank’s other businesses offset most of it.¹

03Why one flat valuation matters so much

The report is plain: “The valuation was unchanged from the previous fiscal year-end,” and “No investment gain or loss was recorded on OpenAI” for the six months.¹ The Vision Fund deck says the same of the quarter.³ A stake can grow without a gain. SoftBank paid in US$10.0bn on 1 April and US$10.0bn on 1 July, and each dollar raised cost and fair value equally, so the cumulative gain stayed at US$45.0bn.¹

Three things make that zero count. The first is the comparison: the ¥2,156.3bn gain of a year earlier was about 63% of that quarter’s ¥3,439.7bn investment line, in a quarter of ¥2,502.2bn net profit.² The second is the weight of the position: OpenAI was 21% of SoftBank’s equity value of holdings on 30 September, up from 17% on 30 June.²

The third is the debt tied to it. In August a subsidiary of Vision Fund 2 borrowed US$10.0bn under an agreement with a cash collateral provision and a mandatory prepayment clause, which “may be triggered under certain circumstances such as a significant decrease in the fair value of the OpenAI preferred shares”. SoftBank guarantees it and counts it as its own debt, and says the OpenAI shares themselves are not pledged.¹²

The mark stood still while OpenAI’s reported business moved: SoftBank’s presentation cites annualised revenue of about US$50bn at September, up more than 70% over July to September, from a post by OpenAI’s finance chief.² SoftBank’s report lists market comparables, cash-flow models and recent transactions as its methods for private companies, without saying which set this valuation.¹

04US$3.73bn of power equipment, and the plan behind it

The largest one-off charge of the quarter is a change of plan. Silver Bands 7 (SB7), a subsidiary funded by SoftBank and Vision Fund 2, reserved factory capacity and bought power-generation equipment for US AI data centres, including the PORTS-Pike campus in Pike County, Ohio. SoftBank says it made these “bridge investments in advance” to secure equipment “in anticipation of shortages”, and expects to recover them through project financing.¹²

The rebates are conditional and apply to future equipment purchases, and SoftBank did not record them as an asset because it could not determine the amount.¹ It does not say which equipment or suppliers are affected. The slides add one detail: the change followed “a review of the project portfolio”.²

The write-off landed in the same quarter as the largest lease in that portfolio. On 17 August SoftBank’s group signed a 20-year agreement with OpenAI for the full 8.0 GW-IT at PORTS-Pike, which SoftBank lists as preparing for construction; it plans to fund such projects with project finance that does not reach back to the parent.² SoftBank’s account has the site contracted and the equipment plan for it and other projects revised, in the same three months. Its next plan, announced a day before these results, is a staged investment in Malaysia with Grab.

05Up ¥20tn since March, down ¥15tn since September

SoftBank reports its value as net asset value (NAV): its holdings less net debt. Its headline says NAV was ¥59.8tn on 30 September, up about ¥20tn from March.² That is true, and it hides the path: NAV was ¥40.1tn on 31 March, ¥72.3tn on 30 June and ¥59.8tn on 30 September. SoftBank also gives a pro forma at 9 November prices of ¥44.7tn, ¥27.6tn below June.²

NAV and the income statement describe different things. Changes in the value of shares in consolidated subsidiaries, “including Arm and SoftBank Corp.”, are not recorded in the consolidated income statement.¹ So Arm’s fall since June does not appear in this quarter’s loss, while OpenAI’s flat value does. Loan-to-value, SoftBank’s debt measure, was 15.9% on 30 September against a policy of staying below 25% in normal circumstances, and its cash position of ¥5.0tn exceeds the ¥1.6tn of bonds due over two years.²