Berkshire Hathaway Prices $1.1 Billion Worth of Yen Bonds

(Bloomberg) -- Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. sold 128.5 billion yen ($1.13 billion) in bonds, taking advantage of Japan’s ultra-low borrowing costs. 

The U.S. company priced a multi-part debt offering on Friday, marking its fourth bond deal in the Japanese currency in as many years. 

With a coupon of 0.203%, the U.S. company priced its 5-year debt at a rate attractive to Japanese buyers given government bonds of that tenor offer negative yields and local companies can sell notes of a similar maturity at less than half that cost. 

While bond yields in Japan have also climbed at the start of the year amid global consumer price pressures, the moves have been small compared with dollar markets due to the Bank of Japan’s negative-interest rate policy.  

Berkshire Hathaway priced one of the biggest yen bond offerings ever by an overseas firm in 2019, and announced the following year that it had built up stakes of about 5% in Japan’s biggest trading companies.    

The company’s 2022 yen issuance was smaller than its 160 billion yen transaction in April 2021.   

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