By DAVID GELLES
For companies looking to raise money through the debt markets, and the bankers egging them on, it seems no sum is too large.
Verizon Communications shattered records and shook up the bond world on Wednesday when it sold $49 billion of investment-grade corporate debt at one time.
It was the largest deal of its kind, exceeding Apple’s $17 billion bond sale in April and illustrating the degree to which low interest rates are enabling corporations to borrow money inexpensively.
Verizon undertook the huge sale of corporate debt as it moves to finance its $130 billion deal to buy out Vodafone’s 45 percent stake in their Verizon Wireless joint venture.
The ease with which Verizon raised so much money caught even longtime market participants by surprise and fed speculation that more companies might tap the debt markets before interest rates begin to rise, as is expected.
“We’re starting to see the animal spirits pick up again,” said Kathy Jones, a fixed-income strategist at Charles Schwab. “Usually, once it gets going, it doesn’t let up.”
One banker involved in the offering said he was counseling corporate clients that now was an ideal time to raise more money for acquisitions.
“From an M.& A. perspective, nothing is out of reach,” he said. He spoke anonymously because he did not want to damage his relationship with his clients. Verizon’s buyout of the Vodafone stake in the wireless business — the third-largest corporate acquisition after Vodafone’s $203 billion takeover of the German cellphone operator Mannesmann in 2000, and the $182 billion merger of AOL and Time Warner in 2001 — was in the works for years, but it was finally struck last week, in part because Verizon wanted to take advantage of low interest rates while they lasted….