Apple sells $7B of bonds to fund buybacks, dividends

new york — Apple sold $7 billion of bonds on Thursday after announcing a new round of stock buybacks and a 10.5 per cent dividend increase for shareholders.

The iPhone-maker sold the debt in six parts in its third trip to the bond market this year. It sold $10 billion in the US in February and $1 billion in Taiwan.

The longest portion of the latest sale was a $2 billion 10-year note with a 3.2 per cent coupon, a departure from its past four sales that all included 30-year bonds. In this offering, the 10-year securities yield 0.85 per centage point above Treasuries. That’s down from initial discussions of one per centage point to 1.05 percentage point, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, who asked not to be named because the deal is private.

Cupertino, California-based Apple has been a fixture in the investment-grade bond market in recent years, even though it sits on a cash pile of $257 billion. Since more than 90 per cent of that money is abroad and would be subject to a 35 per cent repatriation tax, Apple has turned to the bond markets to fund buybacks, capital spending and debt repayments.

New store in Singapore

Apple is getting ready to open its first Apple Store in Singapore on the island’s prime Orchard Road shopping boulevard.

The storefront at Knightsbridge Mall is covered by a white facade with a large red Apple logo next to a heart and red dot above the store name “Apple Orchard Road”. — Bloomberg, Reuters