Google’s parent, Alphabet (NASDAQ:), just issued $32 billion in global debt, including £1 billion of rare century bonds. Alphabet’s century bonds are called such because they do not mature for 100 years (2126). While the century bond is a small piece of its recent debt offering and even less of its outstanding debt ($78 billion), the tranche secures ultra-long-term capital for a long time. On the small piece of debt, Alphabet insulates itself from future interest-rate cycles and the need to refinance debt at maturity.
Century bonds are typically issued when companies can borrow cheaply and, importantly, when investors are confident in the issuer’s durability. Buyers must believe the issuer will still be solvent 100 years from now. The strong demand for its century bonds, as evidenced by orders reportedly several times the offering size, signals that long-term institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies are bullish on Google’s prospects.
What makes the issuance notable is how rare century bonds are, especially for corporations. Ultra-long maturities are usually associated with governments or institutions like universities. Only a handful of major companies have issued them historically. In fact, Alphabet’s deal is the first century bond issued by a technology company since Motorola’s in 1997.
The reason for the scarcity is risk. Over the course of 100 years, industries will transform, business models will vanish, and inflation can radically alter real returns. That is precisely why century bonds tend to appear only during periods of strong investor confidence and abundant liquidity, as we have today. The Tweet below serves as a reminder of what can happen over 100 years.
More On Employment
In yesterday’s commentary, we stated, “We are concerned that revisions to the BLS have been higher than normal.” Our concern is justified. To wit, accompanying Wednesday’s BLS was its annual revisions. Per the BLS:
The seasonally adjusted total nonfarm employment level for March 2025 was revised downward by 898,000. On a not seasonally adjusted basis, the total nonfarm employment level for March 2025 was revised downward by 862,000, or -0.5 percent. Not seasonally adjusted, the absolute average benchmark revision over the prior 10 years is 0.2 percent.
The table below from the report shows that over the last 12 months, the BLS overestimated job growth by over 1 million jobs. Furthermore, and relevant to the Wednesday labor report covering January, there are large seasonal adjustments that are flawed. Accordingly, revisions for January tend to be larger than those for other months. As shown below, the BLS revised its January 2025 forecast down by 159k jobs. A similar revision to the current data would result in a negative number for January 2026.
Tweet of the Day
