(Bloomberg) — SoftBank Group Corp. will repay the balance on a $40 billion loan it signed earlier this year to finance its investment in OpenAI, the Japanese conglomerate said Wednesday, as it moves ahead with plans to refinance that deal with longer-term debt.

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The company will pay down the entire outstanding balance of $25.9 billion on Sept. 15, according to a statement.

The loan is SoftBank’s largest-ever borrowing denominated solely in dollars, reflecting founder Masayoshi Son’s determination to position his company at the center of the global AI boom. The non-collateralized borrowing was due to mature in March next year, and was used for SoftBank’s investments in OpenAI as well as for other costs, the company had said in March.

SoftBank “has tried to stay ahead of that deadline. Issuing bonds pushes the maturity out by several years,” said Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Kirk Boodry. “With markets concerned about leverage in general, better to get it done early and avoid any drama.”

The development comes as SoftBank is set to hold meetings with investors in New York next week to sound out interest for a potential US dollar junk-bond sale. The Japanese firm is considering raising $10 billion to $20 billion from a junk-bond sale, which may also include a tranche in euros, people familiar with the matter said last month. It also recently secured a $10 billion margin loan backed by its OpenAI stake.

Already this year, SoftBank has raised the equivalent of about $25 billion in total from offshore and domestic bond sales and a margin loan, Bloomberg-compiled data show. It is separately seeking another $10 billion loan.

In August, SoftBank Chief Financial Officer Yoshimitsu Goto had said that the company intended to begin taking out the $40 billion bridge loan ahead of schedule through permanent financing. That could include bank-led syndicated loans and bond issuances in the domestic and international markets, as well as asset-backed financing including margin loans, financing involving derivatives and potentially asset sales, he said.

https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/softbank-repay-40-billion-bridge-084641012.html