Amazon.com IncAmazon issued its first sterling corporate bonds raising £4.25bn, a financing event, though demand was weaker than past deals.
Amazon.com on Tuesday issued its first sterling-denominated corporate bonds, raising a total of £4.25 billion ($5.76 billion). This move is part of a broader trend among major cloud providers to diversify their funding sources amid expanding investments in artificial intelligence. According to market sources, final demand for the bonds exceeded £10.65 billion, though it had reached around £12 billion before underwriters slightly tightened pricing. The offering comprised £1.25 billion in three-year bonds and £1 billion each in six-year, twelve-year, and nineteen-year maturities, with yields of approximately 5.2% for the three-year and 6.7% for the nineteen-year. Amazon has previously tapped euro, Swiss franc, and Canadian dollar bond markets, and now adds sterling as a new funding avenue. In the sterling market, Google parent Alphabet raised £5.5 billion in February, with demand reaching about five times the offering size, but demand for Amazon's bonds was only about 2.5 times the issue size, which was weaker compared to its past deals. Gordon Shannon, a partner at TwentyFour Asset Management, noted that this shows demand is not infinite, reflecting investor caution about continued borrowing by hyperscalers. Such large-scale fundraising has been testing the limits of investor appetite since this summer, impacting the overall corporate bond market and pushing borrowing costs higher recently.
Amazon.com IncAmazon issued its first sterling corporate bonds raising £4.25bn, a financing event, though demand was weaker than past deals.
Alphabet Inc Class CAlphabet is mentioned only as a comparison, having raised £5.5bn in sterling bonds in February with stronger demand.