Apple sells debt to help fund $300bn capital return

Apple Inc. is selling bonds as the iPhone maker looks to fund stock buybacks and dividends.

The company is selling fixed-rate bonds in as many as six parts, according to a person with knowledge of the matter. The longest portion of the offering, a 30-year security, may yield around 1.125 percentage points more than Treasuries, said the person, who asked not to be identified as the details are private.

Apple is more than three-fourths of the way through a program that’s returning $300 billion of capital to shareholders by the end of March 2019.

The company could benefit from proposed new tax laws. As of Sept. 30, Apple was sitting on $268.9 billion in cash and marketable securities, 94 percent of which was outside the U.S., Chief Financial Officer Luca Maestri said on an earnings call. That means the Cupertino, California-based company could be a beneficiary of the House Republicans’ tax plan, which would charge companies a 12 percent tax on the overseas profit they’ve earned.

Companies now face a 35 percent rate on their international earnings, but only have to pay it if they repatriate the money.

The bond sale comes just days after Apple briefly became the U.S.’s first $900 billion company as customer demand for the new iPhone X has prompted it to predict record sales of at least $84 billion in the quarter ending in late December. Bank of America Corp., Goldman Sachs Group Inc., and JPMorgan Chase & Co. are managing the bond sale, the person said.