Shares of SoftBank Group plunged 6.4% to ¥4,924 on Thursday as the IPO filing of its subsidiary SB Energy forced investors to confront the raw economics behind the conglomerate's sprawling AI infrastructure ambitions. A simultaneous ~3% Nikkei selloff driven by rising Japanese bond yields compounded the pain.
The IPO Filing Showed a Business Burning Cash With Almost Nothing Coming In
SB Energy reported a net loss of $3.2 billion on revenue of just $139 million for the first half of 2026.
That compares to a net loss of $216 million on revenue of $83 million in the year-earlier period — meaning losses ballooned fifteen-fold while revenue barely doubled. The loss included a $589.5 million non-cash stock-based compensation expense and a $2.57 billion non-cash hit from changes in the fair value of its warrant liability.
The data center segment has not generated significant revenue and is not expected to do so until the fourth quarter of 2026.
SoftBank's Debt Tower Keeps Getting Taller The SB Energy filing arrives as SoftBank is already stretched thin. SoftBank executed an unsecured $40 billion bridge facility in March to fund a $30 billion follow-on investment in OpenAI.
Stack two additional margin loans on top, and SoftBank's OpenAI-linked borrowing tops $50 billion for 2026 alone.
The company is now in discussions to float up to $20 billion in junk-rated bonds to refinance the bridge loan,
but analysts say the funding gap may exceed $20 billion even after such a sale.
One Customer, One Bet
The prospectus highlights heavy reliance on OpenAI and warns of risks from softer spending by big cloud companies.
OpenAI and SoftBank have each agreed to invest $500 million into SB Energy to build a 1.2 gigawatt Texas data center for OpenAI. If OpenAI's own spending shifts, SB Energy's entire pipeline wobbles — and with it, a chunk of SoftBank's portfolio narrative.
The Clock Is Ticking on Refinancing
The bridge facility's 12-month maturity means SoftBank needs a plan to refinance, sell assets, or raise equity before March 2027.
S&P Global has already downgraded SoftBank's credit outlook to negative. The SB Energy IPO, targeting $5–7 billion in proceeds, is meant to help — but today's selloff suggests the market sees it less as a strength and more as proof of how desperately the cash is needed.