(April 7): SoftBank Group Corp is planning its biggest-ever sale of bonds for retail investors even as markets are becoming risk averse due to US tariffs rattling global financial markets.

Masayoshi Son’s investment company is issuing ¥600 billion (US$4.1 billion or RM18.34 billion) of five-year notes for individual investors, according to a filing. That would be its largest offering ever to retail investors, according to Bloomberg-compiled data.

Success in the potential deal would show that a well-known company with junk-level global credit ratings may still be able to raise funds with debt from retail investors in a risk-averse market, as long as the expected returns are high enough.

The company has tentatively set a coupon between 3%-3.6%, according to the filing, with pricing expected on April 18. It previously sold five-year notes with an issue yield of 1.36% in 2015, but that was in the middle of the Bank of Japan’s radical negative interest rate policy, Bloomberg-compiled data show.

SoftBank is planning to use the funds raised to redeem retail bonds and foreign-currency notes, as well as to pay for chip unit Arm’s shares it had purchased from the Vision Fund, according to a spokesperson.

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