Amazon joins Meta, Google in jumbo bond club with up to $42 billion issuance

By Christine Ji

 Amazon is preparing one of the largest corporate bond offerings in history to fund its AI buildout 

 Amazon's projected $200 billion in capital expenditures this year is the highest among all its Big Tech peers. 

 Amazon.com is shaping up to be the latest Big Tech name borrowing money to fund the artificial-intelligence buildout. 

 The company is reported to be raising between $37 billion and $42 billion in U.S. and European credit markets, which would make it one of the largest corporate bond offerings ever, according to Bloomberg News. 

 Amazon (AMZN) is aiming to raise between $25 billion to $30 billion of U.S. high-grade debt. The offering is structured in up to 11 tranches, with repayment terms ranging from two to 50 years. Amazon is also targeting a 10 billion euro, or $11.6 billion, issuance with eight tranches and maturities between two and 38 years. On Tuesday, Amazon filed a preliminary prospectus supplement with the SEC, indicating that it's in the process of marketing the bonds to investors. 

 The proceeds of the issuance will be used for general corporate purposes, an Amazon spokesperson told MarketWatch. 

 The latest bond sale comes after Amazon issued $15 billion of bonds last November. Amazon joins other AI hyperscalers who are also increasing their debt loads by unprecedented levels: Meta Platforms (META) issued $30 billion last October, and Alphabet (GOOGL) (GOOG) issued $32 billion last month across the U.S. and European markets. Alphabet's latest debt raise featured a rare 100-year bond, marking the first time a tech company has issued one since the 1990s. 

 Last month, Oracle (ORCL) also announced plans to raise up to $25 billion of debt for the 2026 calendar year. This comes after the company raised $18 billion of debt last fall. 

 See more: Alphabet's $20 billion bond deal may be followed by something highly unusual 

 Amazon's debt issuance comes as no surprise to GimmeCredit analyst Carol Levenson, who estimates that Amazon could require up to $83 billion in incremental debt this year to support its elevated capital expenditures. 

 On its most recent earnings call last month, Amazon said that it expects to spend $200 billion on capex this year - the highest out of all the "Magnificent Seven" names. Some Wall Street analysts have speculated that Amazon could see its free cash flow turn negative this year as a result. AI spending among Amazon, Meta, Alphabet and Microsoft (MSFT) is expected to exceed $650 billion in 2026. 

 In a Tuesday note, Levenson also highlighted that Amazon will require more funding to support its recent $50 billion investment in OpenAI's latest funding round. 

 Amazon's November bonds, which GimmeCredit gives an outperform rating, are trading around 65 basis points higher than 10-year U.S. Treasury notes. According to data from BondCliQ, spreads on Amazon's existing debt have remained stable following Tuesday's announcement, suggesting that investors remain unfazed by the company's elevated spending and record issuance. 

 Despite the size of the issuance, Amazon's strong credit profile allows the company to issue debt at a competitive rates while attracting robust investor interest. "Although corporate spreads have widened recently, this is still an attractive borrowing environment for an infrequent and very strong issuer," Levenson wrote. 

 According to another Bloomberg report, Amazon has drawn $126 billion of peak demand for its U.S. bond sale, falling in between the $129 billion in orders for Oracle's bond sale in February and the $125 billion for Meta's October offering. 

 S&P Global Ratings assigns an AA rating to Amazon's debt. 

 Read: Amazon, Nvidia and SoftBank pour $110 billion into OpenAI 

 -Christine Ji 

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03-10-26 1950ET

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