Apple Sells $5.5 Billion of Bonds in Tech Borrowing Boom

  • Company last borrowed in May to fund share buybacks, dividend
  • Amazon, Google have also sold bonds with yields at record lows

     

Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg
Lock
This article is for subscribers only.

Borrowing costs are so cheap right now that not even Apple Inc. could resist, becoming the latest to join a boom in issuance from the world’s biggest technology companies.

Apple, which hadn’t borrowed in dollars more than once in a calendar year since 2017, tapped the investment-grade market for $5.5 billion in its second trip since May. It was cheap to issue debt then and is even better now, with cash-rich companies like Amazon.com Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. getting in on the action, outdoing each other to set a new floor for yields.