Companies are borrowing the most in the loan market since 2008to finance acquisitions worldwide, betting that they can quicklyreplace the debt with permanent financing as yields on corporatebonds fall to records.

Anheuser-Busch InBev NV, the world's biggest brewer, obtained$14 billion in credit to buy Mexico's Grupo Modelo SAB, and NestleSA raised $8.5 billion for Pfizer Inc.'s baby-food unit, pushingloans for mergers to $221 billion this year, up 34 percent from thesame period of 2011 and the most since $276 billion four years ago,data compiled by Bloomberg show. Anheuser-Busch sold $7.5 billionin bonds last month that will partly repay the loans, while Nestleplans to do the same within 12 months.

While loan costs are rising, yields on bonds are falling,declining below 3 percent this week for the first time. Interest onshort-term credit average 1.29 percentage points more thanbenchmark lending rates, up from 1.19 percentage point a year ago,Bloomberg data show.