Vodafone Share News (VOD)

Verizon Communications is set to launch a sale of 49bn dollars-worth of bonds to help fund its buy-out of Verizon Wireless from joint venture partner Vodafone. The sale marks the largest corporate debt sale in history with proceeds to be used for the company's $130bn acquisition of a 45% stake in Verizon Wireless. Verizon has put on the table both fixed- and floating-rate debt spread across six different maturities from three to 30 years. The demand for the securities hit nearly $100bn, dwarfing the size of order's for Apple's $17bn offer in April.The company has initially expected to sell about $20bn of debt this week.Verizon tempted cautious investors with higher yields compared with its existing bonds.The so-called concession on price came to about 60 basis points for Verizon's $11bn worth of new 10-year bonds, compared to average new-issue concessions of about 15-20 basis points for similarly-rated 10-year maturities.The sale is being led by JP Morgan Chase & Co., Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Barclays. RD