SoftBank Group (SFTBY) Stock: Second-Quarter Profit Doubles to $16.6 Billion on OpenAI Gains

TLDR

• SoftBank’s second-quarter net profit more than doubled to 2.5 trillion yen ($16.6 billion), beating analyst estimates of 207 billion yen.
• The profit surge came primarily from valuation gains on SoftBank’s OpenAI holdings, which generated 2.16 trillion yen in gains for the quarter.
• SoftBank sold its entire stake in Nvidia, totaling 32.1 million shares for $5.83 billion, to fund further AI investments.
• The company’s total investment in OpenAI is expected to reach $34.7 billion by December 2025, with OpenAI’s valuation jumping from $300 billion in March to $500 billion in October.
• SoftBank has ramped up fundraising through bond issuances worth $3.9 billion across three currencies and arranged $15 billion in bridge loans for AI investments.

SoftBank Group reported second-quarter net profit of 2.5 trillion yen ($16.6 billion) on Tuesday. The figure represents more than double the profit from the same period last year.

The Japanese technology investor beat analyst expectations by a wide margin. Three analysts surveyed by LSEG had estimated an average net profit of 207 billion yen for the July-September quarter.

SoftBank’s Vision Fund unit drove the performance with an investment gain of 3.5 trillion yen. The group’s holding in ChatGPT creator OpenAI accounted for 2.16 trillion yen of those gains for the quarter.

The quarterly earnings mark SoftBank’s best performance since July-September 2022. CEO Masayoshi Son’s bet on OpenAI appears to be paying off as the AI company’s valuation has climbed throughout 2025.

SoftBank’s share price has reached record highs during a broader bull run in technology stocks. The company announced a four-to-one stock split to make its shares more accessible after they nearly quadrupled in value over the past six months.

The results provide SoftBank with more capital to deploy in its AI investment strategy. The company has been actively raising funds to support what it calls its most ambitious investments since launching the Vision Fund vehicles in 2017 and 2019.

OpenAI Valuation Jumps

SoftBank agreed to lead a funding round of up to $40 billion in OpenAI in March at a $300 billion valuation. By October, the AI company’s valuation had jumped to $500 billion.

A source told Reuters that SoftBank was among a consortium of investors acquiring $6.6 billion worth of shares from OpenAI employees at the higher October valuation. The company’s total investment in OpenAI is expected to reach $34.7 billion by the end of December.

CFO Yoshimitsu Goto addressed questions about investment risk at a press briefing in Tokyo. He said SoftBank’s position is that the risk of not investing is far greater than the risk of investing.

Some investors have raised concerns about an AI bubble. The worry centers on whether enormous capital investments by leading firms will generate profits high enough to justify the spending.

Aggressive Fundraising Push

SoftBank sold its entire Nvidia stake in October to fund its AI investments. The sale included 32.1 million shares held by the asset management subsidiary for $5.83 billion.

The company has been a repeat investor in Nvidia over the years. It sold its investment before the AI boom took off, bought shares again, then divested in October to focus on OpenAI.

SoftBank also sold part of its stake in T-Mobile for $9.17 billion. Since April, the company has issued bonds worth 620 billion yen, $2.2 billion, and 1.7 billion euros respectively.

The company arranged an $8.5 billion bridge loan for its OpenAI investment. It also secured a $6.5 billion bridge loan for its acquisition of semiconductor design company Ampere, which it has not yet drawn.

Masayoshi Son has a track record of making leveraged bets on transformative technologies with mixed results. His early investment in Chinese e-commerce site Alibaba proved lucrative, while his bet on shared office provider WeWork went poorly.

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