SAB.L Share News (SAB)

(Adds details) By Davide Scigliuzzo NEW YORK, Jan 11 (IFR) - Beer giant AB InBev was holding itsfirst investor calls Monday to line up the sale of what could bethe largest bond ever sold, part of the financing for itspurchase of SABMiller. Sources told IFR that the maker of Budweiser, Stella Artoisand Corona hired Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Barclays andDeutsche Bank to arrange calls Monday and Tuesday. Market participants expect the bond to be anywhere betweenUS$30bn and US$60bn, which could top the current record-holder,a US$49bn deal from Verizon in 2013. Through the bond deal, AB InBev is expected to take outUS$30bn of bridge loans it received last year and a portion ofthe US$35bn in term loans that were part of the same bankfinancing. Even at the low end of estimates, the deal would be thesecond-largest corporate bond issue ever, ahead of the US$21bnsold by Actavis last year to help fund its takeover of Allergan. It is still unclear whether AB InBev will opt to raise allthe funds in US dollars or might include tranches in euros orother currencies. One banker said that even if the company were to raise theentire amount in US dollars, a strong marketing effort in Europewould not be unusual for a deal of this size. "For something like this, 25% of the book cold be Europeanaccounts," said the banker. Market participants say that if market conditions remainssupportive, a formal announcement could be expected as soon asTuesday or Wednesday. "Usually you don't see calls unless they are going to do adeal," one buyside trader said. "They can prime everybody nowand move fast." US companies have rushed to the bond markets to financeacquisitions and share buybacks, selling a record US$1.269trn ofnew bonds in 2015, and there is an estimated US$200bn pipelineof M&A bond financing in the works for 2016. AB InBev, rated A2 by Moody's and A- by Standard & Poor's,has backed its US$100bn-plus bid for SABMiller with a recordUS$75bn syndicated loan, TRLPC reported in November. The company's vice president for treasury, risk managementand financial markets, Fernando Tennenbaum, and director offunding Matt Amer will host the calls. LARGEST INVESTMENT-GRADE BONDS EVER DATE ISSUER AMOUNT ($,bn) 09/11/13 Verizon 49 03/03/15 Actavis 21 04/23/15 AT&T 17.5 04/30/13 Apple 17 12/01/14 Medtronic 17 05/05/15 AbbVie 16.7 12/09/15 Visa 16 07/09/15 Charter Communications 15.5 07/13/15 CVS Health 15 11/05/12 AbbVie 14.7 09/30/15 Hewlett-Packard 14.6 02/18/09 Roche 13.5 03/17/09 Pfizer 13.5 10/29/15 Microsoft 13 04/30/14 Apple 12 05/13/13 Petrobras 11 03/13/02 GE Capital 11 02/09/15 Microsoft 10.75 07/20/15 UnitedHealth Group 10.5 05/09/01 Worldcom 10.1 09/09/15 Gilead Sciences 10 06/23/15 HJ Heinz 10 05/13/15 Qualcomm 10 05/06/15 Shell 10 12/05/00 British Telecom 10 04/28/15 Oracle 10 06/30/14 Oracle 10 (Reporting by Davide Scigliuzzo; Additional reporting by LauraBenitez; Writing by Marc Carnegie; Editing by Natalie Harrison)