Alphabet (Nasdaq: GOOGL) opened books on a seven-part euro bond sale on November 2, its second euro-denominated offering of 2026, according to a preliminary prospectus supplement it filed with the SEC that morning. The filing lists one floating-rate series and six fixed-rate series, with Barclays, BNP Paribas and Deutsche Bank as joint bookrunners, but leaves the sizes, coupons and maturities blank until the deal prices.
The sale is Alphabet's first bond offering since its third-quarter results. Its US-listed shares fell nearly 19% in October, their worst month on record, Reuters reported. Citing the IFR news service, Reuters put the maturities at two to 19 years and said pricing was expected later on Monday. Bloomberg also reported the launch, under the headline "Alphabet Kicks Off Sale of Its Second Euro Bond This Year."
What the filing says
One floating-rate series, paying three-month EURIBOR plus a margin, reset quarterly, and six fixed-rate series paying interest once a year
Minimum denominations of €100,000, settled through Clearstream and Euroclear three London business days after pricing
Alphabet intends to apply to list every series on the Nasdaq Bond Exchange
Proceeds go to general corporate purposes, "which may include the repayment of outstanding debt"
Until Alphabet files the final prospectus supplement, the amount raised and the price investors pay are not public.
How it compares with Alphabet's May euro sale and Microsoft's deal
Alphabet's first euro sale of the year, priced on May 5, raised €9.0 billion in six fixed-rate series due 2030 to 2063, with coupons from 3.2% to 4.8%. SaasBuzz calculated a weighted average coupon of 3.90% across the six. That deal ran to 37 years; the longest series today runs 19, by IFR's account, and today's adds a floating-rate note, which May's did not have.
Sale | Size | Series |
|---|---|---|
Alphabet euro, Nov. 2 | Not set | 7 |
Microsoft US, Oct. 29 | $25B | 10 |
Alphabet US, Aug. | $25B | 10 |
Alphabet euro, May 5 | €9B | 6 |
Alphabet US, Feb. | $20B | 7 |
Source: prospectus supplements filed with the SEC by Alphabet and Microsoft; SaasBuzz totals of each series.
Microsoft's final prospectus supplement, dated October 29 and filed November 2, shows a $25 billion sale in 10 series due 2028 to 2066, with fixed coupons from 4.85% to 6.35%. SaasBuzz covered Microsoft's $25 billion bond sale as it was marketed. Alphabet's own August dollar deal was the same size and shape: $25 billion in 10 series, with fixed coupons from 4.5% to 6.5%.
Why this sale matters for AI spending
Alphabet has sold more debt in 2026 than it had outstanding when the year began. Its quarterly report for the period ended September 30 says it issued $45.0 billion of dollar notes and $35.8 billion of notes in other currencies during 2026, $80.8 billion in all, against $49.1 billion of long-term debt at face value on December 31, 2025. Foreign currencies made up 44% of that, by SaasBuzz's calculation: sterling, Swiss francs, euros, Canadian dollars, yen and Australian dollars.
Long-term debt on the balance sheet rose to $125.1 billion on September 30 from $46.5 billion at the end of 2025, up 169%. Over the same nine months Alphabet spent $132.0 billion on capital expenditures, so the year's note sales equal 61% of that spending, by SaasBuzz's arithmetic. The 10-Q gives the company's own reason for the spending:
In 2026, we expect to significantly increase, relative to 2025, our investment in our technical infrastructure, including servers and network equipment and data centers.Alphabet's Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026, filed October 29
Bonds are not the only commitment. Today's filing says that, as of September 30, Alphabet had signed data center leases that have not yet started, with future payments of $130.5 billion that are not yet on its balance sheet. The 10-Q also records $19.0 billion in net proceeds from a sale of mandatory convertible preferred stock in June, which it said would fund "capital expenditures to scale AI infrastructure and global compute."
Software companies that rent computing from Google Cloud depend on that buildout, and the cost of funding it is set in sales like this one: the final spreads and the size of the order book, once disclosed, will show what bond investors charge Alphabet after October's sell-off. SaasBuzz's analysis of how the largest companies are financing AI capital spending tracks the same shift from cash to debt across the group.
