London investors feeling left out as Verizon’s sterling bond plans are scrapped
Verizon's $49bn (£31bn) is already the largest investment grad corporate bond sale on record, dwarfing the former title spot (held by Apple's $17bn (£11bn) issuance).
There's been such strong demand that Reuters reports that planned euro and sterling offerings have been scrapped.
The final size was at the top end of the $45-$49 billion range that market sources flagged late on Tuesday following overwhelming demand in excess of $100 billion. That eliminated the need for the company to tap the euro and sterling market too, as originally planned, leaving some investors disappointed.
"Allocation from US dollar bonds to European accounts is typically not great, and I had been hoping to get better allocations in sterling and euros," one London-based investor said.
(Reuters)
The offering could boost US investment grade bond issuance to $540bn (£343bn), making it the highest year to date total since 2008.
Kit Juckes, Societe Generale:
The big US news is that we now have a new 'biggest corporate bond ever'. This is the kind of thing which happens when the cost of money for big cap companies is so out of whack with activity and with returns on equity. It's a reason to like stocks, a reason to prefer dull European corporate bonds to US ones, a reason to be optimistic about US growth.