Alphabet Launches Rare 100-Year Bond to Fund Massive AI Push

"Alphabet is in the midst of a massive global debt spree, seeking to raise approximately $31 billion from investors worldwide. This follows an announcement last week that Alphabet plans to double its capital spending to a whopping $185 billion this year, primarily to build the data centers and infrastructure needed for artificial intelligence. The fundraising frenzy started with a US dollar bond sale that swelled to $20 billion after receiving over $100 billion in investor orders. But the real headline-grabber is happening across the Atlantic."

"As part of its first-ever bond sale in British pounds, Alphabet is issuing an ultra-rare 100-year bond. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, this is the first time a technology firm has sold a bond with such an "extreme maturity" since Motorola did it back in 1997. For a corporate bond, a century is an eternity. Businesses transform, technologies become obsolete, and corporate landscapes shift."

""It's quite difficult to predict what the AI ecosystem will look like in five years' time, let alon[e] in a hundred years," Song Jin Lee, European and US credit strategist at HSBC Bank, told Bloomberg. "The sector as a whole will be there. But the relative pecking order is quite unpredictable." Yet demand has been colossal. According to Bloomberg, the expected £750 million ($1 billion) century bond alone attracted over £5.75 billion in orders,"

Alphabet is pursuing roughly $31 billion in global bond sales to fund a dramatic increase in capital spending to $185 billion for AI-related data centers and infrastructure. The company launched an oversubscribed US dollar bond sale and concurrently offered its first-ever British pound issuance, including an ultra-rare 100-year corporate bond. The 100-year bond marks the first such technology-company issuance since 1997 and attracted orders many times the amount offered. Institutional investors such as pension funds and insurers have shown strong demand despite long-term uncertainty about the AI ecosystem and relative market positions over a century.

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