{"id":466645,"date":"2026-02-10T21:34:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T21:34:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/466645\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T21:34:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T21:34:08","slug":"alphabet-to-sell-rare-100-year-bond-to-fund-ai-expansion-bookrunner-memo-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/466645\/","title":{"rendered":"Alphabet to sell rare 100-year bond to fund AI expansion, bookrunner memo shows"},"content":{"rendered":"

Alphabet (GOOGL-Q<\/a>, GOOG-Q<\/a>) is set to price a rare 100-year bond, a memo from the lead manager showed, as artificial intelligence-driven spending sparks a surge in borrowing at U.S. tech giants.<\/p>\n

The company is selling 5.5 billion pounds\u2019 (US$7.53-billion) worth of sterling bonds \u200din a \u200bfive-part deal, according to the memo, which was seen by Reuters. The 100-year tranche aims to raise 1 billion pounds.<\/p>\n

Alphabet\u2019s sale of the century bond is the tech industry\u2019s first since Motorola\u2019s issuance, according to Piers Ronan, head of debt capital markets at Truist Securities, a bond sale that LSEG data shows dates back to 1997.<\/p>\n

The Google parent also raised 3.055 billion Swiss francs through a five-part bond sale spanning maturities \u2060of three to 25 years, according to a memo from a separate bookrunner.<\/p>\n

The bookrunners declined to be named as they are not authorized to speak publicly.<\/p>\n

The sale of a century bond is a rarity. Sales of such bonds grew during the period of ultra-low interest rates that followed the global financial crisis of 2008. But they died down after 2022 as central banks raised interest rates \u200csharply in the aftermath of the \u200dCOVID-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou have an extraordinary time period that we\u2019re living through now with the change in technology,\u201d said Jason \u200dGranet, chief investment officer at BNY.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday it comes with a 100-year debt \u200cissuance out of Google… That\u2019s representative and indicative of a lot of the capital spending, a lot \u2060of the investment that\u2019s going through in markets and technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alphabet shares were down 1.8 per cent on Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n

The Google parent also sold bonds worth US$20-\u200bbillion in a seven-part offering on Monday that mature every few years, starting in 2029, and go all the way up to 2066.<\/p>\n

Big Tech\u2019s pivot to the bond market, however, has raised investor concerns as payoffs have not kept pace with the huge AI spending from U.S. tech giants, while businesses adopting the technology have so far seen limited productivity gains.<\/p>\n

Capital expenditure from Alphabet, Microsoft, Amazon.com and Meta Platforms \u200bis expected to total at least US$630-billion this year, with most of the spending focused on data centers and AI chips, according to Reuters calculations.<\/p>\n

Some analysts said Big Tech\u2019s greater use of debt reflects a pivot from asset-light models toward long-term infrastructure.<\/p>\n

\u201cCentury bonds are usually the preserve of governments or regulated utilities with very predictable cash flows, so this deal shows that, at least for now, investors are willing to take on very long-dated risk tied to AI investment,\u201d said Lale Akoner, global market analyst at eToro.<\/p>\n

The century bond\u2019s inexpensive nature \u2060makes it an ideal option from an issuer\u2019s perspective, according to Truist\u2019s Ronan.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom an investor\u2019s perspective, buying it is a great \u2060idea because its duration risk is not much higher than the 30-year,\u201d Ronan said, adding that only a handful of companies have taken out century bonds in the \u200cdollar market since the global financial crisis.<\/p>\n

Demand for ultra-long-term bonds is there, especially from life insurers, pension funds and endowments, given a relative dearth of long-end corporate bond issuance, noted Nicholas Elfner, co-head of research at Breckinridge Capital Advisors.<\/p>\n

Oracle had also disclosed a US$25-billion note sale on February 2 in a securities filing.<\/p>\n

The AI hyperscalers – a group that also includes Oracle – issued US$121-billion in U.S. corporate bonds last year, according to a January report by BofA \u200cSecurities.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alphabet (GOOGL-Q, GOOG-Q) is set to price a rare 100-year bond, a memo from the lead manager showed,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":466646,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[62,276,277,49,48,49174,61],"class_list":{"0":"post-466645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ca","12":"tag-canada","13":"tag-streetwise","14":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=466645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/466645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/466646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=466645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=466645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=466645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}