Google Lines Up 100-Year Sterling Bond Sale (ft.com)
- Reference: 0180760906
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/02/09/1548222/google-lines-up-100-year-sterling-bond-sale
- Source link: https://www.ft.com/content/3260bc45-e09e-45a7-ae30-e55effbaf29b
> The so-called century bond will form part of a debut sterling issuance this week by Google's parent company, according to people familiar with the matter. Alphabet was also selling $15bn of dollar bonds on Monday and lining up a Swiss franc bond sale, the people said.
>
> Century bonds -- long-term borrowing at its most extreme -- are highly unusual, although a flurry were sold during the period of very low interest rates that followed the financial crisis, including by governments such as Austria and Argentina. The University of Oxford, EDF and the Wellcome Trust -- the most recent in 2018 -- are the only issuers to have previously tapped the sterling century market.
>
> Such sales are even rarer in the tech sector, with most of the industry's biggest groups issuing up to 40 years, although IBM sold a 100-year bond back in 1996. Big Tech companies and their suppliers are expected to invest almost $700bn in AI infrastructure this year and are increasingly turning to the debt markets to finance the giant data centre build-out.
Michael Burry, [2]writing on Substack :
> Alphabet looking to issue a 100-year bond. Last time this happened in tech was Motorola in 1997, which was the last year Motorola was considered a big deal.
>
> At the start of 1997, Motorola was a top 25 market cap and top 25 revenue corporation in America. Never again. The Motorola corporate brand in 1997 was ranked #1 in the US, ahead of Microsoft. In 1998, Nokia overtook Motorola in cell phones, and after the iPhone it fell out of the consumer eye. Today Motorola is the 232nd largest market cap with only $11 billion in sales.
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/3260bc45-e09e-45a7-ae30-e55effbaf29b
[2] https://substack.com/@michaeljburry/note/c-212166605
Here goes the bubble (Score:5, Insightful)
They're desperate for loans that they won't have to pay back.
Re: (Score:2)
Bonds typically have an interest payment associated with them. I suspect even at 100 years, the interest rate will be so high Google will pay the bonds face value at least once every 20 years, if not more frequently.
This looks like desperation to me. If I were an investor I'd be looking at it as evidence Google's about to seriously decline and maybe pull out of them in general.
Re: (Score:2)
> Bonds typically have an interest payment associated with them. I suspect even at 100 years, the interest rate will be so high Google will pay the bonds face value at least once every 20 years, if not more frequently.
Yes, but you have to factor in inflation. Well, really, you should look at the cost of money. Given that few companies survive 100 years, this would appear to be a risky "investment" that is unlikely to return real value in the long term, unless the interest rates are very high.
Re: (Score:2)
Bond payees are the highest on the totem pole. Every single shareholder gets wiped out before a bondholder even misses a payment.
As a long-term investor... (Score:1)
... I'll consider buying one when there's less than 20 years left to maturity.
Talk to me in 2106.
Sounds great (Score:3)
If tech stocks and crypto isn't risky enough for you. Pick up some century bonds ahead of a massive market correction, potentially the largest one in living memory. The volatile inflation rate and geopolitical instability is an added bonus to the lifetime of excitement and drama a 100-year bond can bring you.
The Alphabet Guarantee (Score:3)
Yep, Alphabet will be around in 100 years, yes? You have to be smoking pretty good weed to believe that.
Re: The Alphabet Guarantee (Score:5, Interesting)
Bonds have priority in liquidation. It doesn't matter if Google is still here. The first people to get paid if things go south are the bond holders, not the stock holders.
Re: The Alphabet Guarantee (Score:4, Funny)
At liquidation, each bond holder will receive one obsolete Nvidia GPU for every $1,000 in bond face value.
Re: (Score:2)
Considering that those few companies that make a profit with AI actually don't need "state of the art" GPUs... that may be a fair deal.
Re: (Score:3)
> Bonds have priority in liquidation.
Priority above shareholders, but below secured creditors, the IRS, etc..
Re: (Score:2)
In the current state of flux in both tech, and global geopolitics, I would not bet on *any* tech company being around in 100 years. No matter how big they are RN.
It does not take many bold but harebrained plans (could cough Neom Line) to drain even a trillion-dollar fund.
My interest is proportional to the interest (Score:2)
I mean, if they pay a vig like you pay your local loanshark, then this would be a cool deal.
AI companies think there's an AI bubble (Score:2)
That's the most compelling evidence I've seen so far, that AI insiders really think their businesses are bubbles. Maybe it really isn't a bubble, but if you think that, you're going against Google's analysis of the situation.
But what do they know? Pffft!
Only worthwhile if interests rates go up. (Score:2)
The bankruptcy idea is a bad one. That is, if your company sells bonds because they think it is going bankrupt, that just makes it worse. You have more debtors and that means stock holders get nothing.
It does however make a lot of sense to take out long term loans if you believe interest rates are really low and inflation/interest rates are going to sky rocket..
Better to sell a bond at 4% today, rather than having to pay 20% a decade from now.
Current Fed effective interest rate is a bit under 4%. Lowest
Re: (Score:2)
I suspect this is a short term liquidity move,, they need mony for the ai bilgout and the power bills over the next few yers before they get an roi. they can afford the cupon bot want to push yhe maturity as far in the future s possible, ( ie not my problem for the next 10 decades) when AI comes in in a big way , they'll probably pay it off way early. And if that does't haloen. Well the investors pitcforks won'y be comming out until long avter the currebt board us 6 feet onder
Good luck for the grandkids (Score:5, Interesting)
Several US “100-year” style bonds did go bust, usually because the issuer collapsed long before the century was up.
The pattern is boringly consistent: railroads, municipalities, and a few grand infrastructure dreams that assumed the future would politely cooperate.
The classic failures were railroad bonds in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Railroads loved ultra-long maturities because they matched the lifespan of tracks and bridges.
Investors loved them because “America is growing forever”.
Many of those companies did not.
When railroads went bankrupt, bondholders were wiped out or forced into deep restructurings decades before maturity.
The bonds did not reach year 100, they died with the issuer.
Municipal century bonds also failed. Cities like Detroit issued very long-dated bonds in the early 1900s. Detroit’s 2013 bankruptcy showed the flaw in the idea that cities are immortal.
Holders of long-dated Detroit paper took severe haircuts.
Again, the bonds existed on paper, but the promise of 100 years was fiction.
Public utility bonds failed too.
Electric, gas, and water companies issued ultra-long bonds assuming stable monopolies.
When regulation changed, companies collapsed or were reorganised, and the bonds defaulted or were converted at a loss.
The lesson history teaches very clearly is that a 100-year bond is not about maturity, it is a bet on institutional survival.
In the US, corporations and cities routinely die before a century passes.
Governments with monetary sovereignty USUALLY don’t but there ARE exceptions.
Imperial Russia, bonds repudiated after the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, investors got nothing despite full monetary sovereignty before collapse.
Germany, Weimar-era hyperinflation destroyed bond value after WWI, later Reich debt was restructured or written down after WWII.
Austria-Hungary, imperial sovereign bonds died with the empire in 1918, successor states refused to honour joint debt.
China, imperial and republican bonds were repudiated after 1949 by the PRC, continuity of the state was rejected.
Argentina, repeated sovereign defaults and restructurings since 2001 show monetary sovereignty does not prevent long-dated bond losses.
I think the problem is (Score:2)
I don't think anyone expected human civilization to just collapse. Detroit just de industrialized and went to shit. Nobody expected America to allow that to happen because everyone just assumed working people had enough common sense and solidarity to prevent their cities and their infrastructure from being destroyed.
I don't think people expected or saw automation either. I've said it before but we have studies that indicate automation is what devoured the middle class not outsourcing. But literally nobo
Missed opportunity (Score:3)
Google really missed an opportunity to sell a 10^100-year bond. What were they thinking??
Re: (Score:2)
I think the sec might have put a stop to a 10^100 year bond, ar 't wa talking in the bollbark of the heat death of the universe her, at any rate fare after the sun dies, yea that matutity sounds like a scam bigger thad madoff
Re: (Score:2)
'twas a pun. 10^100 is a googol.
Re: (Score:3)
Once upon a time, the Bank of England sold bonds that *never* matured. The whole point of owning them was to have a stream of interest income that would continue in perpetuity. They were called "consols." The US government sold consols for a while too. While they never matured, they could be called in and repaid at the issuers option, and they all have been.
Re: (Score:2)
I owned some of those series E bonds when I was young. They made a great birthday present and helped put me through college. Governments can do that because people assume (not always correctly) that they are eternal. Eventually the government decided they were a bad investment and stopped the interest, so you had to cash them in. It only works if you are sure that you can redeem the principle when you need it. If a company sold such a bond, you would likely lose some or all of your money if they go ban
Re: (Score:2)
If you absolutely needed your principle back, you could always sell the consol to somebody else. The reliable stream of interest income was considered so vital, though, that one sees the advice repeated, "Never sell consols," notably in the the Forsyte Saga.
Re: (Score:2)
Some perpetuals still actually exist-- and continue to pay out: One of them just celebrated it's 400th anniversary, and pays out 2.5%... or about 13 euros a year.
[1]https://www.ft.com/content/512... [ft.com]
[1] https://www.ft.com/content/5122706e-39ca-4bbc-95cc-373188a9b1c9
100 years - Will any of us be here? (Score:2)
In 100 years, will any of us be here? Much less, a corporation?
technology century bonds don't make sense (Score:2)
It seems highly risky to buy a century bond from an information technology company. Had we been buying such bonds in 1926, for example, we'd probably be investing in radio companies, which was almost certainly the dominant communications technology of the time. Radio had a good run but it's been superseded by other things, and no radio giant of the 1920s (e.g. RCA) is a top technology company today. Century bonds make sense for some institutions (top universities for example, e.g. MIT sold Century bonds a d
POP! (Score:2)
The AI bubble is about to pop.
[1]https://www.breitbart.com/tech... [breitbart.com]
And OpenAI is burning through cash like a drunk heiress.
[2]https://www.breitbart.com/tech... [breitbart.com]
Look how much OpenAI is in the "heart" of the AI money chain. If they went down, they would take a lot with them. Someone would need to buy them out to keep this fantasy afloat.
[3]https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/1... [cnbc.com]
I would suspect the battle over who would buy them out would be between Amazon and Google.
Maybe this is why Alphabet is trying to rais
[1] https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2026/02/06/big-tech-loses-1-35-trillion-in-market-value-as-ai-skepticism-grows/
[2] https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2026/01/15/financial-expert-openais-long-term-viability-as-it-burns-billions/
[3] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/10/15/a-guide-to-1-trillion-worth-of-ai-deals-between-openai-nvidia.html
the surliest of bonds (Score:2)
Imagine, if you will, a 100-year bond sold by Standard Oil in 1900. Wikipedia says Standard Oil was split into 39 successor entities. In 2000, which of them pays it back?
A lot can happen in 100 years. If you pay actual money for this bond, you will richly deserve all of it happening to you.
Translation: AI won't turn a profit this century (Score:2)
It's just not going to happen.