Visa Inc. raised $16 billion in its first bond sale to financethe payment network's 21.2 billion euro ($23.3 billion)takeover of Visa Europe Ltd.

The deal is the fourth-largest corporate debt offering this yearafter Actavis Plc's $21 billion debt sale to buy Allergan Inc.,AT&T Inc.'s $17.5 billion bond offering funding the purchase ofDirectTV and AbbVie Inc.'s $16.6 billion financing to buyPharmacyclics Inc.

“It's an inaugural issuance, it's across the curve, and thisvery well could be one of the last major investment-grade deals of2015,” said Jesse Rosenthal, an analyst at CreditSights Inc. “Visabonds are prime candidates for long-term buy and holdportfolios.”

Visa's is the latest in a string of large bond deals in a yearwhere investment-grade companies have issued a record $1.28trillion of debt before the Federal Reserve raises interest ratesfor the first time since 2006. Fed Chair Janet Yellen and otherpolicy makers at the U.S. central bank have signaled they remainprepared to raise their key rate as soon as their next meetingstarting Dec. 15.

The Fed meeting “creates another unknown in the marketenvironment and speaks to the reason why doing a deal of this sizeat a time when it's still not so close to the meeting is probablyideal,” said Jody Lurie, a corporate credit analyst at JanneyMontgomery Scott LLC. “We are at a point where if the companywaited any longer, it would probably have to wait until January,given the market expectations for this month.”

Visa sold the notes in six parts, according to data compiled byBloomberg. The longest dated part of the sale was $3.5 billion in4.3 percent 30-year bonds that yield 1.32 percentage points morethan similar-maturity Treasuries, according to a person withknowledge of the offering. That's less than the initially offeredspread of 1.55 percentage points, said the person, who askednot to be identified because the information isn't public.

The yield represents a 21 basis points discount for the companycompared to bonds of similar maturity and rating, according to Bankof America Merrill Lynch Indexes.

The acquisition will allow Visa to unify its brand globallyafter eight years as separate companies. The lack of contributionsto earnings from Europe has long been seen as a weaknessfor Foster City, California-based Visa and an advantage forsmaller competitor MasterCard Inc., which owns its Europeanbusiness.

The deal is expected to be completed by June 30, according to aNov. 2 statement.

Bloomberg News

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