Alibaba attracted extraordinary demand as it tapped US debt markets for the first time on Thursday, lifting issuance by investment grade companies in the US to more than $600bn for the year.
The order book for the Chinese ecommerce company’s maiden $8bn debt sale was more than six times subscribed as demand reached $55bn, allowing Alibaba to tighten the pricing on the six-tranche sale, according to two people familiar with the offer.
The dollar-denominated sale was made to qualified institutional investors in what is known as a 144A private placement. The offering, which was led by Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and JPMorgan, comes as US borrowing costs remain low by historical standards, with the yield on the 10-year Treasury note at 2.34 per cent.