Apple, the most valuable company in the world, launched a multibillion-dollar bond deal on Tuesday to fund its share buyback programme, as international debt markets began to reopen after a challenging start to the year.
The smartphone maker plans to sell $12bn worth of debt across nine tranches, with maturities spanning between two and 30 years, according to several people familiar with the matter.
The bonds are to include both floating and fixed rates of interest. Bankers, in consultation with Apple, are said to have debated increasing the debt sale to as much as $15bn as order books grew, but ultimately settled on the $12bn amount, according to one of the people.