“Apple Inc. will likely issue the company’s first yen-denominated bonds in June, people familiar with the issuance said Wednesday, in the latest of several moves to take advantage of rock-bottom interest rates in some non-U.S. markets,” Takashi Mochizuki and Eleanor Warnock report for The Wall Street Journal.
“The U.S. tech giant will issue around ¥200 billion ($1.6 billion) of yen-denominated bonds and use the proceeds for shareholder returns and possibly also to expand Japanese operations, one person familiar with the matter said,” Mochizuki and Warnock report. “Japanese bond yields and issuance costs are some of the lowest in the world as the central bank keeps interest rates low with its massive monetary easing program.”
“The company has been using proceeds from debt sales to fund payment of dividends and to buy back shares,” Mochizuki and Warnock report. “It has been using newly issued funds for these purposes rather than using its overseas holdings of cash from foreign earnings, which would be taxed if brought back to the U.S.”
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MacDailyNews Take: Free money, compared to the alternative.
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