SoftBank, a holding company specializing in technology investments, reached a new all-time high on Monday, 25 May 2025 GMT+7 in the Tokyo market following reports that OpenAI, one of the AI companies heavily invested in by SoftBank, is preparing to file IPO documents soon.
SoftBank shares rose 4.6% on Monday. Investors began seeing opportunities and growing confidence that returns could be realized once OpenAI goes public. Looking back at the statistics, since 20 May 2025 GMT+7, SoftBank shares have surged by 40%. This resulted in the company's market capitalization exceeding 40 trillion yen, approximately 252 billion U.S. dollars.
This increase also narrowed the market cap gap between SoftBank and Toyota, Japan's highest-valued company, to about 18%. Excluding treasury shares, SoftBank's market value has surpassed Toyota's for the first time since 2000.
Over the past two days, reports have consistently emerged that OpenAI is preparing to file IPO registration documents soon. Meanwhile, SB Energy, SoftBank's energy infrastructure unit, also announced plans to file for a U.S. stock market listing.
Takashi Nakagawa, senior analyst at TokaiTokyo Intelligence Laboratory, stated that the market is highly satisfied with OpenAI's clearer IPO plans, expected to materialize shortly after long-awaited anticipation. This IPO will bring more transparency and concrete figures to SoftBank’s portfolio, which mainly consists of investments in private companies.
Additionally, stock gains last week were supported by the rise of Arm Holdings, a chip architecture design company in SoftBank’s portfolio, following strong earnings results from Nvidia, one of Arm's customers.
SoftBank is a favorite among retail investors in Japan and holds a significant weighting in the Nikkei 225 index. News about companies in its investment portfolio, such as ByteDance or Coupang, also has the potential to directly impact SoftBank's share price.
Currently, SoftBank is one of the largest shareholders of OpenAI and has pledged to invest an additional 20 billion U.S. dollars. This will result in SoftBank's total investment in OpenAI rising to nearly 65 billion U.S. dollars. This corresponds to a total ownership stake of around 13% in OpenAI.
SB Energy, supported by SoftBank and focused on energy production and grid management, is a key part of Masayoshi Son's vision to expand data center infrastructure across the United States. Over the past year, SB Energy has raised more than 1.8 billion U.S. dollars from SoftBank, OpenAI, and Ares Management.
Source:Bloomberg
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