Tencent appoints banks for first bond sale in 4 years
Bank of China and JPMorgan Chase to serve as joint global coordinators
Chinese technology and mobile gaming giant Tencent Holdings has appointed banks for its first bond offering in four years.
The company is proposing to sell offshore-yuan denominated notes with five-year, 10-year and 30-year tenors as early as Tuesday, according to a person familiar with the matter.
It said Bank of China and JPMorgan Chase would be the joint global coordinators, with Bank of Communications and Morgan Stanley serving as the joint bookrunners for the deal, the person added.
If launched, it would be the tech company’s first-ever dim sum bond and its first bond offering in any currency since 2021, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The newly priced bonds will add to Tencent’s existing US$17.75 billion in outstanding notes.
The move comes amid increased fundraising activity in China’s tech sector, with Alibaba Group Holding recently raising about US$3.2 billion in the year’s biggest offering of convertible notes so far, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The appetite for cash among Chinese tech giants is a sign of competition in the sector, where companies are putting billions of dollars into cloud computing, artificial intelligence (AI) and food delivery.
Another Chinese tech giant, Baidu, recently raised 4.4 billion yuan (US$618 million) from a dim sum bond offering, following a 10 billion yuan issuance in March.