Tencent to sell this year’s largest US Dollar bond in Asia worth $5 billion

Date: 3rd April 2019

Tencent Holdings Ltd is planning to for a US dollar bond sale that has a capability of raising up to $5 billion. The sale was held on Wednesday where 5-year, 7-year, 10-year and 30-year bonds were up for sale.

The term sheet which showed the timeframe of the bonds did not elaborate on the amount the company is expecting to get from the bond sale.

This bond sale has the capability of raising the largest amount in Asia this year by outstripping $2.8 billion bond sale by China Evergrande Group in January.

Reports claim that the sale earnings will be utilised in refinancing and general corporate purposes. Tencent, after being requested to elaborate on the possible size of the sale, denied commenting on the question.

Tencent said on Monday that the limit of its Global Medium Term Note Programme has been raised from $10 billion to $20 billion. The company added that it has decided to put up an “international offering” soon.

The company did not have the best financial year in 2018. It took almost nine months to get its games monetized in China.

Its net profits have experienced the sharpest drop since the company issued its initial public offering back in 2004. Q4 of 2018 had profits dropping 32 per cent. One of the factors of this decline in net profits is the losses incurred by the portfolio companies of the conglomerate.