Alphabet kicks off six-part euro debt offering

[CALIFORNIA] Alphabet has kicked off its latest megabond deal as it returns to the euro market just months after selling nearly US$32 billion of US dollars, sterling and Swiss franc-denominated notes.

The Google parent is selling the debt in six tranches, a source said.

Initial price talk on the longest portion of the deal – a note maturing in 2063 – is in the 205 basis-point area above midswaps, the source added, asking not to be identified while discussing private details.

Alphabet said it is planning as much as US$190 billion of capital expenditures in 2026, more than it spent in the past three years combined, as it invests heavily in data centres critical to its artificial intelligence ambitions.

Proceeds from the offering on Monday (May 4) will be used for general corporate purposes, which might include the repayment of outstanding debt, the source said.

The four biggest cloud-computing companies, called hyperscalers, are planning to spend as much as US$725 billion in 2026 on AI data-centre equipment and other capital, increasing their earlier projections.

Hyperscalers are ramping up bond sales to finance massive computing buildouts, with investors showing signs of fatigue after some US$300 billion of various types of AI debt had already been sold.

It includes project finance debt and unsecured notes from hyperscalers.

Meta Platforms priced a US$25 billion bond sale on Apr 30 as its shares suffered their biggest decline in six months – on concerns that its AI spending might not generate returns.

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Amazon.com borrowed almost US$54 billion in the US and European high-grade bond markets in March, while Oracle raised US$25 billion from a bond sale in February that attracted a record US$129 billion of orders at its peak. 

Alphabet’s previous bond sale in February raised US$20 billion in its biggest US dollar bond sale – more than the US$15 billion initially expected, after the company racked up orders that peaked at US$103 billion.

It also sold debut deals in Switzerland and the UK, including a rare sale of 100-year bonds – marking the first time a tech company has priced such an offering since the dot-com frenzy of the late 1990s.

Its latest euro-currency offering, which is expected to price later on Monday, is being arranged by Barclays, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and HSBC. BLOOMBERG