The IG bond market is on Meta watch.
Some thought a $20bn-$25bn deal from the Instagram and Facebook operator could price as early as this week after the company reported Q3 earnings on Wednesday (21 October) — a week earlier than it reported last year, seemingly as a way to get ahead of both next week’s Federal Reserve meeting and the 3 November midterm elections.
But Meta paused to let the market digest several items from the report, with an eye to Monday as a possible window to get the deal done.
The absence of Meta kept issuance relatively light, with $23.1bn pricing from just 13 borrowers and no-print days on both Thursday and Friday.
Meta’s core advertising business continues to exceed expectations, but the company guided to more spending on its AI build-out, raising the bottom end of its 2026 capex spending expectation by $5bn to a range of $135bn-$145bn. The company also raised its future spending commitments to $825bn from its previous $700bn commitment back in July.
At the same time, the company is also facing a record-breaking $25bn penaltyfrom a New Mexico judge this week stemming from its ongoing Cambridge Analytica scandal. Meta said it will...
