AT&T Taps High-Grade Bond Market to Sell $5 Billion of Bonds

(Bloomberg) — AT&T Inc. is selling $5 billion of investment-grade debt on Thursday, weeks after it agreed to a $23 billion investment to expand its network.

The telecommunications company is offering notes in four parts, according to a person familiar with the matter. The longest portion of the deal, a 29-year note, will yield around 1 percentage point over Treasuries, the person said, asking not to be identified as details are private. Initial price talk was for 1.3 percentage point over Treasuries.

Most Read from Bloomberg

Proceeds from the deal can be used for general corporate purposes, including upcoming debt maturities and pending acquisitions.

Bloomberg earlier reported the company was looking to sell at least $4 billion of high-grade bonds. A representative for AT&T confirmed the sale but didn’t specify the size of the issuance.

Bank of America Corp., BNP Paribas SA, Citigroup Inc., JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Mizuho Financial Group are leading Thursday’s bond sale, the person said.

The deal comes after EchoStar Corp. agreed in late August to sell spectrum licenses to AT&T for about $23 billion. AT&T said it intends to finance the EchoStar deal with a combination of cash on hand and borrowings.

Dallas, Texas-based AT&T also sold $3.5 billion of bonds in May.

Eight other companies are looking to sell high-grade debt on Thursday, after the primary market paused for the Federal Reserve’s first rate cut in nearly a year Wednesday. UBS Group AG is among those tapping the market, looking to sell bonds in as many as five parts.

(Updates to add pricing details starting in the lead paragraph. An earlier version of this story corrected the day of the week in the first paragraph.)

Most Read from Bloomberg Businessweek

©2025 Bloomberg L.P.