Companies Rush to Bond Markets for Cut-Price M&A Funding

Companies are hurrying to the bond market for cheap M&A funding while the going is good, long before their deals are even completed.

That’s made this quarter the biggest in four years for acquisition financing at $113 billion globally, one of the highest tallies on record, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. On just one day last week, Merck & Co Inc. and GE HealthCare Technologies Inc. raised a combined $9.25 billion, both for buyouts announced only around two weeks earlier.