FX.co ★ Amazon launches huge bond sale

Amazon.com Inc is offering investment-grade bonds for general corporate purposes that may include repaying debt as well as funding acquisitions and share buybacks in its first note sale in about a year.

The online retail giant is selling senior unsecured bonds in seven parts. The longest portion of the offering is a 40-year security that may yield 1.55 percentage points compared to Treasuries.

The last time Amazon entered the US debt market was in May 2021 when it sold $18.5 billion of bonds, including those for general corporate purposes with possible refinancing of debt and share repurchases. The yield of the 40-year security on that deal was 95 basis points over Treasuries.

According to Robert Schiffman, senior credit analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence, Amazon's credit quality will continue to improve even though it again enters high-grade debt markets. The company's balance sheet is growing and "with $50 billion of outstanding bonds, it could come close to sector leader Apple Inc.'s debt of over $100 billion in the intermediate term," the expert added. At the end of 2021, Amazon securities reached an all-time high of $96 billion.

Although yields have jumped since then, selling debt now makes sense because borrowing costs may get even higher as the Fed is fighting inflation and tightens the money supply.

The company also has aggressive business ambitions, including opening new warehouses, expanding its brick-and-mortar grocery operations, and sending broadband-streaming satellites into space.

In February, Amazon impressed Wall Street with a strong earnings report. Although online sales declined from last year's results facilitated by lockdowns, the company's profitable cloud-computing and advertising businesses will make up for it.

However, the company spent heavily in the holiday season to ensure packages got to customers amid supply-chain bottlenecks and an acute labour shortage. The biggest part of that spending went into hiring 140,000 workers. Amazon also gave generous bonuses to workers and sent half-empty vehicles if it meant getting packages to customers on time. So, these costs totaled $22.4 billion.

In March, Amazon announced a 20-to-1 stock split and a $10 billion share-buyback authorization that sent the stock soaring.