Walmart Inc. is tapping both U.S. and Canadian markets at once, aiming to pull in about $6.5 billion while broadening where it borrows during a heavy investment phase. People familiar with the deals said the company opened a C$5 billion Canadian-dollar offering, its first in that market, and separately priced $3 billion of U.S. dollar bonds.
Demand showed up in size. The U.S. tranche drew peak orders of more than $14 billion, with maturities from three to 10 years; the 10-year notes are set to yield 0.45 percentage point over Treasuries. Walmart typically sells bonds roughly once a year and already raised $4.25 billion in April. Earlier indications were that it aimed to bring in at least $5 billion across this round.
Walmart, Bank of America Corp., and BNP Paribas SA are among the banks tied to at least one of the note sales; they either declined to comment or did not respond.
Walmart has been plowing money into opening stores, scaling e-commerce, and automating tasks. Estimates compiled by Bloomberg point to about $29 billion of spending next year, which would be a record. The retailer faces maturities next year on roughly $3.3 billion in bonds.
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Last week, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Poonam Goya and Sydney Goodman said Walmart is poised to widen its customer reach and win a greater share of household outlays as inflation and higher gas prices strain budgets.
Issuing in Canadian dollars gives Walmart, a roughly $950 billion company, both currency and investor diversification. It is also a path other U.S. heavyweights have taken: earlier this year Alphabet Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. sold Canadian-dollar bonds to fund artificial intelligence infrastructure. Local buyers have been active in foreign-company debt to expand their exposure across sectors and issuers.
Primary markets are busy alongside Walmart's move. A quartet of issuers - including Kimberly-Clark Corp., the consumer-products company - are in the market Monday with a combined $10.4 billion of investment-grade U.S. dollar bonds.
The bottom line: a top-tier issuer drawing deep demand across currencies helps set pricing markers that can ripple into your portfolio. If issuance stays brisk, it keeps borrowing costs visible across names and maturities.
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