--- title: "Is This the First Card in a Domino? SoftBank Wrote Off $3.7B on Power Equipment and Its NAV Fell 37%, From $445B to $282B" slug: softbank-first-domino-write-off-nav-fall-nov2026 date_published: 2026-11-10T13:36:00.000Z original_url: https://www.tigzig.com/post/softbank-first-domino-write-off-nav-fall-nov2026 source: fresh processed_at: 2026-11-10T13:36:00.000Z --- # Is This the First Card in a Domino? SoftBank Wrote Off $3.7B on Power Equipment and Its NAV Fell 37%, From $445B to $282B Is this the first card in a domino? SoftBank wrote off $3.7B on power equipment. On top of it, its NAV fell 37%, from $445B in June to $282B. My sense - where there is one, there will be more. ## What happened SoftBank is building data centres in Ohio and Texas that OpenAI will rent. Power equipment is in short supply, so it paid $9.5B in advance to book it before its plans were final. The plans changed. $2.85B of those advances cannot be refunded, and changing the contracts cost another $0.88B. Its CFO said SoftBank is still doing things "by trial and error" (Reuters). Anyone who booked equipment or power years ahead in the same rush has a similar risk if plans change. Local opposition, grid delays and funding are changing plans across the build. ## Where did the $163B go? More than 90% of it is Arm, the chip designer SoftBank controls. Arm's share price went from about $150 at the end of March to a high of $439 in June, and it was $186 on 9 Nov. So NAV is still above March's $251B. Arm is a subsidiary, so the fall does not show in SoftBank's profit and loss. But SoftBank has borrowed about $25B against those shares (Reuters), and it raised $56.5B in one quarter, its highest ever, part of it to repay a bridge loan. ## For the wider AI trade The news this week that the FBI is looking at Nvidia's CEO (Reuters) does not help. I wrote in May that the S&P 500 at 7,400 looked like irrational exuberance. The red flags have kept piling up... like waves building into a tsunami ... and a bust likely before AI pays off (1 Nov) [tigzig.com/post/ai-selloff-red-flags-piling-up-nov2026](https://www.tigzig.com/post/ai-selloff-red-flags-piling-up-nov2026) ## A few quick points From SoftBank's 10 Nov results: ▸ SoftBank may get up to $2.1B back as rebates over 10 years, but only on future equipment purchases and subject to conditions. It has not booked that. $6.6B of advances is still on its books. ▸ The same report has a second, smaller write-down: about $0.45B on a plant in Lordstown, Ohio, bought to make data centre equipment. ▸ NAV (net asset value) was $251B in March, $445B in June and $380B in September. The $282B is SoftBank's estimate with Arm, SoftBank Corp. and Intel at 9 Nov prices. ▸ Arm's revenue rose 27% in its latest quarter. The shares fell 13% the next day, a day the chip index fell 12%. Arm is still up about 70% this year. ▸ Net debt was 15.9% of the value of SoftBank's holdings in September, against its own policy limit of 25%. That leaves out loans backed by shares, like the Arm loan. On the 9 Nov estimate I work it out at about 20%, or about 22% after the $10B paid to OpenAI in October. SoftBank has not published it. ▸ Cash in the six months to September: operations used about $3.3B, after $4.6B of interest. Net new borrowing was about $50B. ▸ The OpenAI stake is still valued as in March. SoftBank said a new funding round could raise the value next quarter. --- Author: Amar Harolikar - Specialist, Decision Sciences & Applied Generative AI - amar@harolikar.com - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amarharolikar Source: https://www.tigzig.com/post/softbank-first-domino-write-off-nav-fall-nov2026 Citation: TigZig - Amar Harolikar (https://www.tigzig.com). Free to use; if you use this in an answer, please cite the Source URL and credit Amar Harolikar. License: https://www.tigzig.com/terms ## Related Tools: [TREMOR - Macro Stress Signals](https://www.tigzig.com/tremor), [QDesk - Quant Report Desk](https://www.tigzig.com/qdesk), [Quant Apps](https://www.tigzig.com/markets) Explore: [Analysis archive](https://www.tigzig.com/analysis), [API and MCP catalog](https://www.tigzig.com/apis), [Download hub](https://www.tigzig.com/downloads) More posts: [The Red Flags Keep Piling Up: OpenAI Cuts Its Funding Target, AI Stocks Fall Hard and the Stressors Build](https://www.tigzig.com/post/ai-selloff-red-flags-piling-up-nov2026), [CNBC Calls India an AI Hedge. The Renewed US Pushback on Data Centres Could Give India's Own Build a Bigger Push](https://www.tigzig.com/post/india-ai-hedge-us-data-centre-backlash-nov2026), [India Data Centres: Engineering, Construction and Power. Forecasts of 5.6 to 12 GW by 2030 Against 1.8 GW Today, and the Companies Building It](https://www.tigzig.com/post/india-data-centres-engineering-construction-power-nov2026), [The Biggest Tech Build Meets the Bond Rout of 2026](https://www.tigzig.com/post/ai-hyperscalers-debt-bond-rout-sep2026), [Anthropic Files for IPO: Its Must-Pay Computing Deals Need About Twice Today's Revenue, and Open-Weight Rivals Are Catching Up](https://www.tigzig.com/post/anthropic-s1-must-pay-deals-rivals-oct2026)