Apple saw strong demand for for its new $14 billion debt deal on Monday, attracting more than $33 billion worth of orders. Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Securities, and Morgan Stanley underwrote Apple’s latest debt offering.
Joy Wiltermuth for MarketWatch:
The six-tranche Apple AAPL, +1.65% debt deal included mostly bonds rated Aa1 and AA+ that mature in five to 40 years. The largest $3 billion slug of 30-year debt cleared at a spread of 82 basis points above Treasurys TMUBMUSD30Y, 1.888%, according to pricing details viewed by MarketWatch. The Apple deal also marked the biggest U.S. investment-grade corporate bond to be issued so far in 2021, topping 7-Eleven’s nearly $11 bond offering last week, according to one bond investor.
Its debt deal followed on the heels of Apple posting its highest quarterly revenue ever last week, with the new iPhone 12 helping power the company to its first $100-billion quarter in sales.
Apple’s new set of bonds were denominated in U.S. dollars, which the company noted partially could be used to buy back stock and fund dividend payments, in its prospectus.
Apple reported last week that it recently returned more than $30 billion to shareholders, including $3.6 billion in dividends and equivalents and $24 billion through the repurchases of 200 million Apple shares.
MacDailyNews Take: More buybacks and a modest dividend increase are coming later this spring.