Comment on Moody’s Release Related to Unsolicited Ratings

On November 27, 2024, Moody’s Japan K.K. (“Moody’s”) issued a release regarding SoftBank Group Corp. (“SBG”) titled “Moody’s Ratings revises SoftBank Group’s outlook to positive from stable, affirms Ba3 corporate family rating,” authored by Mariko Semetko and Ryohei Nishio. We reaffirm that SBG has not obtained any credit ratings from Moody’s.

Since withdrawing our request for ratings on March 25, 2020, we have neither provided any information to Moody’s regarding their ratings, nor received any requests for information or inquiries from them for over four and a half years. Moody’s opinions are therefore based solely on their subjective assumptions and hypotheses, with no reasonable factual basis. Since March 2020, we have repeatedly requested that Moody’s remove the unsolicited ratings and change their publication method to avoid any misinterpretation by investors as granted credit ratings.

The transparency of Moody’s analysis has diminished over time. Since March 2020, Moody’s has justified its ratings by citing downgrades to qualitative factors, such as financial policy, which are difficult for market participants to verify. Despite our quantitative financial improvements, Moody’s has disregarded them, relying on erroneous assumptions regarding the monetization of our Alibaba Group Holding Limited shares. Although Moody’s has recently started incorporating our improved LTV (Loan-to-Value, calculated as net interest-bearing debt ÷ equity value of holdings, in Moody’s definition) based on our recent public disclosures into their analysis, this information was already widely known to market participants. The release of Moody’s inappropriate and backward-looking analysis at this time fosters significant uncertainty and confusion among market participants concerning SBG.

We have strongly protested this in the past and, once again, reiterate our request that Moody’s immediately cease the publication of unsolicited credit ratings about SBG that fail to reflect our true state.

Moody’s justifies the issuance of unsolicited credit ratings by citing the “benefit of providing information for market participants” and claiming that “sufficient information has been and continues to be available for the assignment and maintenance of its ratings of SBG.” However, discussions with market participants reveal that Moody’s unsolicited credit ratings are not perceived as beneficial information. Moreover, factual inaccuracies in Moody’s analysis further demonstrate that neither of their criteria has been met.

The continued publication of unsolicited ratings by Moody’s over the past four and a half years risks misleading investors in their decision-making processes. SBG is exploring all available options, including the possibility of legal action and consultation with regulatory authority, to address this issue.

Currently, SBG’s credit is rated only by S&P Global Ratings (S&P) and Japan Credit Rating Agency, Ltd. (JCR). SBG will continue to provide S&P and JCR with accurate information necessary for their ratings analyses, such as our management strategy, financial policies, and financing matters, through interviews with our management and other means of communication.