SoftBank’s Record ¥5 Trillion Profit Hides a Growing Reliance on OpenAI and Rising Debt Concerns

SoftBank posts highest annual profit for a Japanese company at ¥5 trillion, but $45 billion of Vision Fund gains come from a single OpenAI bet, prompting S&P to cut outlook.

SoftBank Group has just reported the highest annual profit ever for a Japanese company — ¥5 trillion ($32 billion) — yet the milestone is drawing more scrutiny than celebration. The reason lies not in the size of the number, but in how narrow its foundation has become.

The bulk of that income came from the Vision Fund, which booked a full-year gain of $46 billion. Of that, $45 billion stemmed from a single non-listed holding: OpenAI. In the fourth quarter alone, SoftBank marked up its OpenAI stake by $25 billion, according to Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Kirk Boodry. The result was a quarterly net profit of ¥1.83 trillion, more than six times the ¥295.2 billion consensus estimate.

Yet a number of other high-profile bets have soured. The first Vision Fund lost billions. Coupang suffered a data breach that hammered its share price. Holdings in DiDi Global and Klarna also dragged on performance. The OpenAI profits are effectively papering over those losses — a dynamic that has not gone unnoticed by credit markets.

In March, S&P Global Ratings cut SoftBank’s outlook from stable to negative, warning that the company’s aggressive funding of the OpenAI investment threatens its “liquidity of assets” and financial flexibility. The total commitment to the AI developer is set to reach $64.6 billion by October, including a $10 billion tranche already deployed and additional follow-on investments. A bridge loan taken in March still has $17.5 billion outstanding.

SoftBank’s finance chief, Yoshimitsu Goto, points to a ¥3.5 trillion cash pile that covers more than two years of bond maturities. That buffer, he argues, provides ample breathing room. But the ratings agency sees the risk of forced asset sales if OpenAI’s unlisted valuation ever falters.

Meanwhile, the company’s most important publicly traded asset, Arm Holdings, continues to perform. The chip designer’s market cap has more than quadrupled since its IPO, and revenue rose 23% in fiscal 2025 to $4.9 billion. A 38% jump in Arm’s stock earlier this spring helped offset longstanding weakness in another key holding, Alibaba.

SoftBank is also pushing deeper into hardware and infrastructure. It has approved the acquisition of ABB’s robotics division, which employs 7,000 people building industrial robot arms for factories. The deal is expected to close by the end of 2026, pending regulatory approval. Alongside that, the company plans to invest $16 billion in the Stargate data-center project alongside OpenAI and Oracle, with another $9 billion earmarked for strategic buys including ABB Robotics and DigitalBridge.

For the current fiscal year, SoftBank has already earmarked $38.5 billion for new investments. Management does not provide formal profit guidance, citing the inherent volatility of its technology portfolio. The coming months will be heavily defined by whether OpenAI can sustain its valuation trajectory — and whether SoftBank’s single-stock gamble continues to deliver the returns that now dominate its income statement.