SoftBank's Crown: Record Valuation Meets $40 Billion Debt and a June AGM Showdown

SoftBank shareholders meet June 24 to vote on ¥5.5 dividend, AI charter shift, and independent directors as stock volatility tops 110% and debt looms.

Investors in SoftBank Group are bracing for a defining moment on June 24, when shareholders gather for an annual meeting that will test Masayoshi Son's grip on Japan's newly crowned most valuable company. The agenda includes a vote on a ¥5.5 dividend, the election of independent directors, and an official pivot in the corporate charter toward artificial intelligence, semiconductors and robotics. The gathering comes as the stock careens through one of its most volatile stretches on record.

Son's conglomerate unseated Toyota as Japan's top company by market capitalisation, a historic shift fuelled by the artificial-intelligence boom. SoftBank owns 87 per cent of chip designer Arm Holdings, whose shares have nearly quadrupled in 2026. That surge, combined with a roughly $25 billion paper profit from the OpenAI stake, propelled annual net income to about ¥5 trillion — a fourfold increase. The stock now trades near ¥35 a share in Tokyo, but the ride has been anything but smooth.

Annualised 30-day volatility has topped 110 per cent, making the equity one of the most turbulent in the developed world. On Tuesday the stock closed at ¥35.42 after sliding 21 per cent in a single week. June 4 saw an 11 per cent one-day plunge. Yet over the past month the shares still show an 11 per cent gain. The relative strength index sits at 48, firmly neutral.

The wild swings partly reflect huge uncertainty around SoftBank's most important bet: OpenAI. The ChatGPT developer confidentially filed for an initial public offering, a move that would for the first time put a public price tag on SoftBank's exposure. The group has poured more than $30 billion into OpenAI, a position that has swelled to a $60 billion-plus stake — roughly 30 per cent of SoftBank's entire portfolio. The IPO could unlock a lot more: lenders have become wary of private assets, scuppering a planned $6 billion margin loan secured by the OpenAI holding. Concrete valuation markers from the IPO process might reopen those frozen credit lines.

That matters because SoftBank is running on debt. A $40 billion bridge financing taken out in March comes due in early 2027, and the company only this week completed the early repayment of some dollar bonds issued in 2021. The rating agency S&P responded to the borrowing spree by lowering its outlook from stable to negative.

Opinion is split on whether the balance sheet can handle the strain. Gil Luria at Davidson describes the group as a highly leveraged wager on artificial intelligence. Richard Kaye at Comgest counters that the loan-to-value ratio sits below 25 per cent, providing ample headroom. Shareholders will be watching closely for any management comments on the debt pile during the AGM.

Son's long-term vision, meanwhile, extends beyond chips and chatbots. He is ploughing €75 billion into AI data centres in France, tying together Arm chip architectures, OpenAI language models and industrial robotics. The first concrete output is due in the second half of 2026, when serial production of humanoid industrial robots is slated to begin at Bavarian factories. That would mark the first meaningful revenue from what Son calls “Physical AI”.

But for now, SoftBank remains a story of extremes: a record market cap, a $40 billion debt wall, breathtaking volatility, and a single IPO that could either unlock the next leg of growth or expose the fragility of the entire structure. The June 24 AGM will show which way the board intends to steer.