SoftBank races to fulfill $22.5-B funding commitment to OpenAl

SoftBank Group is racing to close a $22.5-billion funding commitment to OpenAl by yearend through an array of cash-raising schemes, including a sale of some investments, and could tap its undrawn margin loans borrowed against its valuable ownership in chip firm Arm Holdings, sources said.

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The “all-in” bet on OpenAl is among the biggest yet by SoftBank Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Masayoshi Son, as the Japanese billionaire seeks to improve his firm’s position in the race for artificial intelligence (AI). To come up with the money, Mr. Son has already sold SoftBank’s entire $5.8-billion stake in AI chip leader Nvidia, offloaded $4.8 billion of its T-Mobile stake, and slashed staff.

Mr. Son has slowed most other dealmaking at SoftBank’s Vision Fund to a crawl, and any deal above $50 million now requires his explicit approval, two of the sources told Reuters.

Mr. Son’s firm is working to take public its payments app operator, PayPay. The initial public offering (IPO), originally expected this month, was pushed back due to the 43-day-long US government shutdown, which ended in November. PayPay’s market debut, likely to raise more than $20 billion, is now expected in the first quarter of next year, according to one direct source and another person familiar with the efforts.

The Japanese conglomerate is also looking to cash out some of its holdings in Didi Global, the operator of China’s dominant ride-hailing platform, which is looking to list its shares in Hong Kong after a regulatory crackdown forced it to delist in the US in 2021, a source with direct knowledge said. Investment managers at SoftBank’s Vision Fund are being directed toward the OpenAl deal, two of the above sources said.