Beijing: Baidu Inc, the operator of China’s leading search engine, is planning to offer about 10 billion yuan or about US$1.4bil of bonds offshore, people familiar with the matter say, adding to a string of recent debt financings by the nation’s tech companies.
The deal will consist of a five-year note to yield 2.6% to 2.8%, and a 10-year security at 2.8% to 3.0%, according to the people, who asked not to be identified.
The deal is expected to be priced tomorrow.
The size has increased from earlier discussions of a total of at least four billion yuan. This would be Baidu’s first bond offering since 2021, and would come before it must repay a US$600mil security due April 7, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Other Chinese tech companies have been active in debt financing markets recently.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd, the Chinese Internet pioneer co-founded by Jack Ma, priced about US$5bil of US dollar and yuan bonds in November.
That was its first public note offering in nearly four years after it also sold US$5bil of convertible securities in a private offering in May.
The financings come at a time when major industry players, from OpenAI to Alibaba, on both sides of the Pacific have rolled out artificial intelligence (AI)models at a rapid clip.
The series of introductions underscore a dramatically quickened pace of development in the AI sector since Hangzhou-based DeepSeek stunned Silicon Valley with a model that matched the best from OpenAI and Meta Platforms Inc and is touted to be much cheaper to train. — Bloomberg
