Tech

Alphabet Launches Seven-Part Euro Bond Sale Days After Record Stock Drop and Jump in Default-Insurance Costs

Alphabet opened books Monday on its second euro bond sale of 2026, with maturities from two to 19 years, after weak third-quarter results drove a record share drop and wider tech credit spreads.

Nov 02, 2026 - 07:20

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Alphabet, the parent company of Google, began marketing its second euro-denominated bond sale of the year on Monday, November 2, 2026, a test of investor demand for technology debt after the company's disappointing third-quarter results and a wave of concern over artificial intelligence spending. The seven-part offering spans maturities from two to 19 years and was expected to price later in the day, according to a report published by CNBC-TV18, which cited a person familiar with the matter.

Deal structure

The sale includes two-year floating-rate and fixed-rate notes, along with four-, six-, nine-, 13- and 19-year tranches, BigGo Finance reported. Initial price thoughts on the two-year fixed-rate tranche were around 60 basis points over mid-swaps, while the 19-year notes were offered at about 205 to 210 basis points over mid-swaps. A basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point. Barclays, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank are arranging the offering. The total size had not been announced at the time of the reports.

Deutsche Bank's London branch published a pre-stabilisation notice for the Alphabet multi-tranche euro offering on the London Stock Exchange's RNS service on Monday, TradingView showed, a standard filing that allows arranging banks to support the price of new bonds during the initial trading period.

Alphabet raised â‚¬9 billion, about $10 billion, across six tranches when it sold euro bonds in May, its first sale in that market, according to the reports.

Why the timing matters

The new offering follows a difficult week for Alphabet's stock and debt. On Friday, contracts that protect against a default on Alphabet's debt jumped 6.4 basis points, a record daily increase in absolute terms, to an all-time high of almost 91 basis points, according to the CNBC-TV18 report. A day earlier, the shares had their biggest one-day drop on record after search and advertising sales disappointed.

Alphabet's Class A shares closed at $283.82 on Thursday, October 29, down 12.6% from $324.89 the day before, and ended Friday at $279.84, according to Yahoo Finance data. The stock lost 12.6% over the week, its sharpest weekly drop since 2008, Stocktwits reported. It was up about 1% in premarket trading on Monday.

In its third-quarter earnings release filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Alphabet reported revenue up 25% to $127.6 billion, while purchases of property and equipment of $51.36 billion exceeded the $42.29 billion of cash generated by operations. Revenue from Google Search and other rose 12% to $63.35 billion, short of the $64.96 billion analysts expected, and Google Cloud revenue rose 103% to $30.7 billion, CNBC reported. The company kept its 2026 capital expenditure forecast of $195 billion to $205 billion.

A broader test for tech borrowing

Large technology companies have increasingly turned to bond markets to help fund data centers and other AI infrastructure. The disappointing results helped push borrowing spreads wider across technology debt, and recent tech bond sales have faced weaker demand and wider pricing, according to the CNBC-TV18 report. Companies are still expected to keep borrowing heavily to fund AI investment.

The pricing of the longest-dated tranche will be one measure of how much extra yield investors are demanding to lend to the sector for nearly two decades. Final terms, including the size of each tranche and the coupons, had not been disclosed as of Monday morning.

Investors are also watching other large technology issuers this week. Apple is scheduled to report fiscal fourth-quarter results after Monday's close, its first report under Chief Executive John Ternus, and Palantir Technologies also reports after the bell, according to Stocktwits.