软银集团1万亿日元零售债票息定为4.75%，处于此前指引区间内

TOKYO -- SoftBank Group's 1 trillion yen ($6.4 billion) bonds targeting retail investors will carry a coupon rate of 4.75%, the highest level for the investment group's straight bonds in 17 years.
The offering period for the seven-year bond will run from Sept. 7 to Sept. 16, with the issue date set for Sept. 17, according to the terms the company announced Friday.
When the bond issue was first announced, it had an indicative coupon range between 4.3% and 4.9%.
The 1 trillion yen bond issuance will tie with the 1 trillion yen offering in 2020 by NTT Finance as the largest corporate bond offering ever in Japan, including bonds for institutional investors.
The terms, including the coupon rate, were determined with reference to the prices and yields of past SoftBank bonds in the secondary market. Because this market's main participants are institutional investors, the terms of retail corporate bonds tend to incorporate these "professional" investors' assessments.
On Aug. 24, when the group announced the issuance, the secondary-market rates on seven-year bonds having a maturity date of December 2032 -- similar to the planned offering -- were just under 4.4%.
The issuer's creditworthiness is key in evaluating corporate bonds. With companies in general, it relies on their ability to sustainably generate cash to pay for interest and repay principal.
It is a different story for SoftBank Group as an investment company. Its source of repayment is funds generated by asset sales and dividend payments, and its creditworthiness is swayed by the value of assets it owns.
SoftBank's net asset value -- the value of its shareholdings less net interest-bearing liabilities -- totaled 58.3 trillion yen as of Aug. 5. More than 70% of its assets are made up of its stakes in U.S. artificial intelligence company OpenAI and British chip designer Arm Holdings.
The group's NAV jumped about 80% in the three months through June as Arm's share price surged. But Arm shares have been trending down of late. Since the stake in privately held OpenAI has limited liquidity, the value of assets does not directly indicate SoftBank's repayment capability.
Given such risk, SoftBank has set its own financial rules and seeks to keep its loan-to-value (LTV) ratio -- net debt against equity holdings -- below 25%.
Theoretically, this would mean that even if the value of its equity holdings tumbles to one-quarter of the current value, SoftBank would be able to pay off its debt by selling all its assets. Its LTV stood at 13% at the end of June. The group also has enough cash on hand to cover redemptions over the next two years.
Credit rating agencies are divided. Japan Credit Rating Agency gave an A rating to SoftBank's 1 trillion yen retail bond, the sixth-highest level on its 20-notch scale.
In contrast, S&P Global Ratings gave a BB+ long-term issuer credit rating to the group. This is a speculative grade, the same level as such other Japanese companies as Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings and Mitsubishi Motors.