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AbbVie Inc. ABBV, +0.78% sold $30 billion of bonds Tuesday to help fund its acquisition of Allergan AGN, +0.21% PLC, taking advantage of investors’ strong demand for higher-quality business debt to bring one of the largest corporate-bond sales on record.
Like other investment-grade companies that have completed large bond sales in recent years, AbbVie had little trouble selling its debt. After holding calls with investors last week, the drugmaker issued 10 different bonds with maturities ranging from 1½ years to 30 years.
The deal marked the fourth-largest investment-grade bond sale on record, exceeding Comcast Corp. ’s $27 billion sale in October of last year, according to Dealogic.
For AbbVie, buying Allergan would give it a dominant position in the $8 billion-plus market for beauty drugs, such as Botox, as it attempts to diversify beyond Humira, its top-selling rheumatoid-arthritis drug.
An expanded version of this story appears on WSJ.com
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