SoftBank’s high-stakes bet on artificial intelligence is finally bearing fruit, even as the conglomerate tolerates rising leverage. For the quarter that spanned October through December 2025, SoftBank reported a net income of 248.6 billion yen, roughly $1.62 billion, marking a sharp turn from the losses seen a year earlier. The improvement is driven largely by the rising value of SoftBank’s stake in OpenAI, which now stands at about 11% of the company.
The unrealized gain on the OpenAI investment was estimated at $19.8 billion by year-end, a swing that played a crucial role in lifting the Vision Fund into positive territory with a $2.4 billion quarterly profit. This boost helped push nine-month group net income up to nearly 3.2 trillion yen, a fivefold increase from the prior period.
To fund its AI ambitions, SoftBank has reorganized its holdings aggressively. The group exited sizable equity positions in Nvidia and T-Mobile, realizing multi-billion-dollar moves. At the same time, it has increased borrowings, secured against core assets such as Arm, the chip designer.
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The consequence for SoftBank’s balance sheet is a higher loan-to-value ratio, which climbed to 20.6% at the end of December from 16.5% three months earlier. Cash on hand slipped modestly to 3.8 trillion yen. Management stresses that liquidity remains adequate to meet bond maturities over the next two years, but the financial flexibility of the group has narrowed.
Beyond the numbers, SoftBank is pursuing strategic moves that could refresh its funding pipeline. PayPay, the group’s payments subsidiary, has officially filed for a U.S. initial public offering with the SEC, which could provide additional capital in the medium term.
On the operational front, SoftBank is deepening collaboration with its leading portfolio company. A new AI-support service for Japanese firms is slated to launch this month in partnership with OpenAI. When asked about participating in future OpenAI funding rounds, Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto declined to comment, indicating that no decision had been made yet.
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