SoftBank Group on Thursday reported an 18% fall in first-quarter net income to 347.3 billion yen ($2.20 billion), beating analyst estimates, and booked a gain on its stake in chipmaker Intel.
The investment and technology conglomerate booked record net income of more than 5 trillion yen last year, boosted by the rising value of its holdings in ChatGPT developer OpenAI.
SoftBank made an investment gain of 1.86 trillion yen over the quarter, mostly due to a gain of 1.33 trillion yen on its shareholding in Intel, whose shares have rallied.
Intel is run by Masayoshi Son’s ally Lip-Bu Tan and SoftBank made a $2 billion investment in the chipmaker last year as it underwent restructuring.
With OpenAI preparing for an initial public offering that may be held off until next year, investors are focusing on SoftBank’s finances.
SoftBank said it agreed a $10 billion loan in August with financial institutions using its OpenAI stake as collateral.
Talks for a loan had earlier stalled over difficulty in valuing OpenAI, as it is a private company, Reuters reported last month.
Son is bullish on OpenAI’s prospects and has sold off assets, including holdings in Nvidia and T-Mobile, as he expands bets on AI-related companies.
While SoftBank secured a $40 billion bridging loan to cover its investment commitments in 2026, the facility will expire in March 2027, at which point SoftBank will have to pay it back or refinance.
In the second half of 2026, SoftBank has committed to investing a further $20 billion in OpenAI as well as $5.4 billion to acquire ABB’s robotics business and $3.1 billion to acquire digital infrastructure investor DigitalBridge.
($1 = 157.8000 yen)
Reuters
