SoftBank Adds 21 Lenders to $40 Billion OpenAI Loan, Wins Preferred Bidder Status for SP.LINKS

TradingKey - On July 28, SoftBank Group recently made new progress in both capital markets and M&A. On one hand, the $40 billion bridge loan raised for investing in OpenAI attracted another 21 financial institutions during the syndication distribution phase; on the other hand, negotiations to acquire Blackstone ( BX )'s Japanese payment company SP.LINKS have entered their final stage.

It is understood that the signing of this $40 billion bridge loan was officially completed in March this year, initially underwritten by nine banks. A few months later, the loan entered a large-scale distribution phase, with 21 new institutions collectively taking on about $7 billion of the loan commitment.

Among them, First Abu Dhabi Bank, GIC, and Standard Chartered Bank each committed nearly $1 billion, with the remaining allocation held by various banks across Europe, Japan, and Taiwan.

The loan has a term of 12 months with an initial spread of approximately 250 basis points. Based on the current SOFR level, the implied interest rate is about 6.14%, making it one of the largest bridge financings on record in the Asia-Pacific region.

Some participating banks internally expressed concerns about SoftBank's over-concentration of bets on OpenAI, but judging from the final subscription results, this did not dampen the overall market's enthusiasm. The underwriters expect to earn over $100 million in fee income from this transaction, and do not rule out distributing the remaining allocation to more institutions in the future.

Meanwhile, substantive progress has also been made on the M&A front. People familiar with the matter revealed that SoftBank's telecommunications subsidiary has obtained preferred bidder status for SP.LINKS, a Japanese payment service provider held by Blackstone, and has entered the exclusive negotiation phase.

Currently, Blackstone holds an approximately 80% stake in SP.LINKS, while Sony Bank holds the remaining 20%. If the transaction is completed successfully, SP.LINKS will become a wholly-owned subsidiary within the SoftBank ecosystem.

It is reported that the overall valuation is about 100 billion yen (approximately $611 million). Based on this calculation, the 80% stake acquired by Blackstone in early 2024 for about 40 billion yen (approximately $245 million) has now risen in value to about 80 billion yen (approximately $489 million), nearly doubling its paper gains.

The predecessor of SP.LINKS was Sony Payment Service, established in 2006. Its core business includes a high-speed settlement network directly connected to 16 credit card companies, as well as an integrated merchant-side payment platform covering more than 40 payment methods.

SoftBank already owns SB Payment Service, a payment processing business, and is also the main driver behind PayPay, Japan's largest mobile payment app. After acquiring SP.LINKS, SoftBank can expand its overall payment transaction scale, dilute costs in anti-fraud system construction, and expand its business scope to the merchant-side payment processing segment.

While financing and M&A seem independent, their underlying logic is aligned. Funds raised overseas are used for AI infrastructure investments, while acquiring a payment company in Japan is aimed at planning the payment infrastructure in advance for the commercial application of AI technology.