Apple Talking With Investors About $15-16 Billion Bond OfferingFollowing up on yesterday's initial filing from Apple addressing the company's efforts to issue a bond offering to raise cash in support of its stock buyback program, the company today filed a prospectus with the Securities and Exchange Commission outlining its general plans, which include six different chunks of debt with staggered maturities. The Wall Street Journal has more on Apple's prospectus and other details being revealed in one-on-one meetings with potential investors:The Apple deal comprises six chunks of debt, according to a regulatory filing from the company. Four tranches of fixed-rate debt are being offered in the form of three-, five-, 10- and 30-year paper. Rounding out the deal are two tranches of floating-rate debt, comprised of three- and five-year notes.The Wall Street Journal indicates that Apple has not yet announced exactly how much money it intends to raise with today's offering, but that Apple is expected to offer "more than $10 billion" worth of bonds. Reuters cites a higher figure of $15-16 billion, which would rank the deal as one of the largest investment-grade bond offerings in history. While Apple holds approximately $145 billion in cash and investments, roughly two-thirds of that money is currently held in foreign countries and would be subject to significant taxes if it were to be returned to the United States. As a result, Apple has elected to keep that money offshore and instead rely on relatively cheap debt to fund its capital return program, which consists primarily of a major stock buyback program and a quarterly dividend. Apple's current plan involves spending $100 billion to return capital to investors by the end of 2015. Recent Mac and iOS Blog Stories • Belkin Officially Begins Shipping Thunderbolt Express Dock • Apple Tops Consumer Reports' Tech Support Ratings, Bests Its Own Score • Adobe Offering Spring Discount on Lightroom and Elements • Boost Mobile May Offer iPhone Later This Year • Independent Game Developer Pranks Pirates With 'Game Dev Tycoon' • Microsoft Commercial Pits Apple Against Samsung to Tout Windows Phone • Square Register App Updated With Barcode Scanning, Order Modifiers and Other Improvements • New Report Details Inside Look at San Francisco Police Department Undercover Stolen iPhone Sting
http://www.macrumors.com/2013/04/30/apple-talking-with-investors-about-15-16-billion-bond-offering/
