Chipmaker Nvidia seeks to raise over $25B in first bond deal since 2021

芯片制造商英伟达拟融资超 250 亿美元，为 2021 年以来首次发债

Chipmaker Nvidia is planning to sell $25 billion of investment-grade debt in the US on Monday, its first bond sale in five years, in a test of investor appetite for further exposure to the AI sector. 芯片制造商英伟达（Nvidia）计划于周一在美国发行 250 亿美元的投资级债券。这是该公司五年来首次发债，旨在测试投资者对进一步投资人工智能（AI）领域的兴趣。

In a marquee seven-part bond offering, the company will issue a wide range of maturities from two years to 30 years, according to a term sheet seen by the FT. The issuance was upsized from $20 billion after receiving more than $85 billion in orders by early afternoon in New York, according to people familiar with the deal. 据英国《金融时报》看到的一份条款清单显示，该公司将进行一项备受瞩目的七部分债券发行，期限涵盖从两年到 30 年不等。据知情人士透露，由于纽约时间下午早些时候收到的订单超过 850 亿美元，此次发行规模已从最初的 200 亿美元上调。

Thanks to robust demand, the 10-year portion of the bond was expected to yield 0.5 percentage points above US Treasuries, down from 0.75 percentage points during initial discussions, one of the people said. 其中一位知情人士表示，得益于强劲的市场需求，该债券 10 年期部分的收益率预计将比美国国债高出 0.5 个百分点，低于最初讨论时的 0.75 个百分点。

Favorable market conditions after the US-Iran deal are allowing Nvidia to raise debt at a relatively low cost, said Lauren Wagandt, a portfolio manager at T Rowe Price. “It’s a very high-quality company at the end of the day,” said Wagandt. “And it doesn’t come to the market as often as the other tech names.” 普信集团（T Rowe Price）投资组合经理劳伦·瓦甘特（Lauren Wagandt）表示，美伊协议后的有利市场环境使英伟达能够以相对较低的成本筹集债务。瓦甘特说：“归根结底，这是一家非常优质的公司，而且它不像其他科技公司那样频繁进入市场融资。”

The issuance by the semiconductor group, the biggest beneficiary of Big Tech’s trillion-dollar spending spree on AI infrastructure, comes as tech groups race to secure funding amid an intensifying AI arms race, but also as Wall Street faces a torrent of new equity and debt issuance, including SpaceX’s record $75 billion initial public offering. 作为大型科技公司在 AI 基础设施上万亿美元支出浪潮的最大受益者，这家半导体巨头的此次发债正值科技公司在激烈的 AI 军备竞赛中竞相筹集资金之际。与此同时，华尔街也正面临大量新的股权和债务发行，包括 SpaceX 创纪录的 750 亿美元首次公开募股（IPO）。

“We intend to use the net proceeds from this offering for general corporate purposes, including repayment and refinancing of outstanding notes,” Nvidia said. 英伟达表示：“我们打算将此次发行的净收益用于一般企业用途，包括偿还和再融资未偿票据。”

Monday’s offering is at least three times larger than Nvidia’s previous bond sale in 2021 during the coronavirus pandemic, when it raised about $5 billion. When completed, it will more than triple Nvidia’s debt outstanding to about $30 billion from the current level of $8.5 billion. 周一的发行规模至少是英伟达 2021 年新冠疫情期间上一次债券发行规模（约 50 亿美元）的三倍。此次发行完成后，英伟达的未偿债务将从目前的 85 亿美元增加到约 300 亿美元，增长超过两倍。

Early signs of market fatigue have prompted some tech companies to find alternative avenues for financing. Anthropic has turned to private credit investors to seal a $35 billion deal backed by Broadcom. Google’s parent Alphabet decided to issue equity for the first time in more than two decades, bringing in $85 billion in fresh capital earlier this month. 市场疲软的早期迹象促使一些科技公司寻找替代融资渠道。Anthropic 已转向私人信贷投资者，以达成一笔由博通（Broadcom）支持的 350 亿美元交易。谷歌母公司 Alphabet 本月初决定二十多年来首次发行股票，筹集了 850 亿美元的新资本。

Nvidia’s position as the AI industry’s go-to supplier of the powerful chips needed to build large language models such as OpenAI’s GPT has proven extremely lucrative for the Silicon Valley company, with its free cash flow in the year to January leaping 59 percent to $96.6 billion. 英伟达作为 AI 行业构建大型语言模型（如 OpenAI 的 GPT）所需强大芯片的首选供应商，其地位已证明对这家硅谷公司而言极其有利可图。截至 1 月份的一年里，其自由现金流跃升了 59%，达到 966 亿美元。

However, after its valuation peaked at about $5.7 trillion in May, its shares have fallen alongside the wider semiconductor market in recent weeks, with its market capitalization dropping below $5 trillion at the end of last week. 然而，在 5 月份估值达到约 5.7 万亿美元的峰值后，其股价在最近几周随整个半导体市场一同下跌，上周末其市值已跌破 5 万亿美元。

While reaping huge profits from AI spending, Nvidia has also become a significant investor in AI companies, committing a total of more than $90 billion to developers, including OpenAI, Anthropic, and xAI, and suppliers, including Coherent, Marvell, Lumentum, and Corning. In some cases, it has also agreed to act as a backstop or financial guarantor to customers building cloud computing services using its chips, including CoreWeave and Nscale. 在从 AI 支出中获得巨额利润的同时，英伟达也已成为 AI 公司的重要投资者，向 OpenAI、Anthropic 和 xAI 等开发商，以及 Coherent、Marvell、Lumentum 和康宁（Corning）等供应商投入了总计超过 900 亿美元的资金。在某些情况下，它还同意为使用其芯片构建云计算服务的客户（包括 CoreWeave 和 Nscale）提供支持或财务担保。

The increasing use of financial guarantees and the interdependence of AI companies have raised concerns about concentrated risks among bond investors, said Tom Murphy, global head of investment-grade credit at Columbia Threadneedle Investments. “The market has started to get worried about these circular financings, because if somebody in that ecosystem is having a problem, then the whole thing could be a problem,” Murphy said. 哥伦比亚天利投资（Columbia Threadneedle Investments）全球投资级信贷主管汤姆·墨菲（Tom Murphy）表示，金融担保的日益增加以及 AI 公司之间的相互依赖，引发了债券投资者对集中风险的担忧。墨菲说：“市场已经开始担心这些循环融资，因为如果生态系统中的某个人出现问题，那么整个系统都可能出问题。”

Nvidia has a double-A credit rating, the third-highest score. More indebted AI player Oracle sits just two notches above a junk rating. Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, and Morgan Stanley are active bookrunners of the transaction. 英伟达拥有双 A 信用评级，这是第三高的评级。负债较多的 AI 参与者甲骨文（Oracle）的评级仅比垃圾级高出两档。高盛、摩根大通和摩根士丹利是此次交易的活跃账簿管理人。