DevelopingSoftBank's $7 billion loss lands on the day Anthropic starts selling a $1.1–1.3 trillion IPO

SoftBank Group reported a net loss of roughly ¥1.1 trillion, about $7 billion, for the quarter to September 30, the company said on November 10. A year earlier the same quarter produced a ¥2.5 trillion profit, almost all of it an accounting gain on SoftBank's stake in OpenAI after a funding round lifted the private valuation. Three analysts polled by LSEG had expected anything from a ¥233 billion profit to a ¥113 billion loss; the actual figure was far outside that range.

Why SoftBank matters for AI

SoftBank has spent $64.6 billion to assemble a roughly 13% holding in OpenAI, which makes its quarterly accounts the nearest thing public investors have to a mark-to-market on the most valuable private AI company. When OpenAI's valuation rises, SoftBank books gains; when sentiment turns, as it did through a week in which AI stocks sold off after the US midterms and Nvidia's board opened a probe into its chief executive, the same line reverses. Reuters noted that SoftBank's own shares have roughly halved since early June. The group no longer holds Nvidia, having sold that stake in 2025, so its exposure is now almost purely to OpenAI and to the data-centre projects it is financing alongside it.

Anthropic's timing

The loss landed on the morning Anthropic was expected to begin formally marketing its IPO, fifteen days after its public S-1 filing, with investor meetings reportedly scheduled through the week and a Nasdaq debut possible before Thanksgiving. Bloomberg reported that investors now estimate a valuation of $1.1 trillion to $1.3 trillion. That is the third downward step in a month: $2 trillion was floated in early October, $1.4–1.5 trillion was the talk two weeks ago, and last week's reporting had buyers pushing back on $1.5 trillion.

The revenue line supports a large number by any historical standard. Anthropic's S-1 showed first-half revenue of $16.3 billion, roughly fourteen times the prior-year period, driven by enterprise coding use. But $1.1 trillion is still more than 30 times annualised first-half revenue, and the filing also disclosed around $895 billion of commitments, overwhelmingly for compute and infrastructure. Nvidia agreed last November to invest up to $10 billion, reportedly including a further allocation in the IPO, in exchange for Anthropic running its first gigawatt of capacity on Nvidia hardware.

The counter-argument

SoftBank's quarter is a lagging indicator of a sell-off that has already partly reversed; the Nasdaq recovered on Friday and Monday, and SoftBank's own shares rose sharply on the results day according to market data widgets, which suggests the loss was priced in. Anthropic also cut the price of its top model by 20% on November 9, which bulls read as confidence in volume and margin rather than a scramble for revenue. And the lower valuation range may be exactly what a successful deal needs: a listing priced to rise is better for a company that will return to the market for capital than one priced to the last private mark.

What to watch

The final price range, which should appear once the roadshow has a week of feedback. The lock-up terms and whether existing holders sell. Whether OpenAI, which has filed confidentially, accelerates its own timetable. And SoftBank's next disclosure of the carrying value of its OpenAI stake, which is now the public market's best read on what OpenAI is worth.