Latest mega deals to test limits of US debt boom

New York

WALL Street's dealmakers are about to find out how much longer the seven-year corporate-debt binge can last. With two mega mergers announced in the past two days, debt investors will be asked to lend as much as US$120 billion to finance the combinations of brewers Anheuser-Busch InBev NV (AB InBev) and SABMiller plc and tech giants Dell Inc and EMC Corp.

The transactions would, respectively, bring the largest corporate-bond sale ever as well as a record offering by a junk-rated issuer. The trick will be finding ample demand for those deals - along with at least US$130 billion of bonds and loans in the works - in a market that's recently had a bad case of indigestion.