Twix and Mars chocolate bars on shelves in a shop in Chelmsford, UK. Photographer: Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg.

Mars Inc. sold $26 billion of U.S. high-grade bonds on Wednesday to help fund its acquisition of rival foodmaker Kellanova, in the biggest U.S. corporate bond sale of the year so far.

The candy maker saw strong demand for the bonds, with investors placing orders for around $114.4 billion worth of notes, the biggest final order book on record for the U.S. corporate market, according to people with knowledge of the transactions. The final orders for bonds represented about 4.4 times the notes actually for sale, while the average ratio for the year is closer to 3 times, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

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