The technology group Apple is a group of superlatives: In 2018 it was the first American company to achieve a market capitalization of one trillion dollars, only to then two years later - again as the first company - to exceed a market capitalization of 2 trillion dollars and is now worth more than 3 trillion dollars to be.

The group employs more than 60,000 people around the world, and at times it had more financial reserves than the American government.

Even today, Apple can look back on a proud cash fortune of 180 billion dollars.

So it's surprising that such a company gets money from the bond market, as has happened these days.

Franz Nestler

Editor in Business.

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Specifically, Apple borrowed $5.5 billion on Monday.

The bonds will be issued in four tranches with maturities of between seven and 40 years.

The interest rate is considered attractive, being between 63 and 118 basis points above the level of US government bonds.

The rush for the papers was great.

With a volume of 23 billion dollars, the demand has exceeded the supply many times over, as the Bloomberg agency, which specializes in financial news, reports with reference to people familiar with the matter.

The money is intended to be used for general corporate purposes: That usually means share buybacks and dividend payments.

Apple still has a top rating and can finance itself cheaply: Moody's gives it the top rating of Aaa, which only Microsoft and Johnson & Johnson can achieve in the S&P 500.

Of course, Apple wants to take advantage of that.

And the fact that Apple is borrowing billions is an expression of confidence in growing cash flows and not an operational need, believes at least Bloomberg expert Robert Schiffman.

So Apple borrows money because the company can, not because it has to.

The group is a repeat offender: the group has issued so-called green bonds several times – i.e. bonds that are intended to serve sustainable purposes.

After all, Apple has also set itself the goal of becoming carbon neutral by 2030.

The group has issued three green bonds since 2016, the last for the time being in 2019. The total volume is 4.7 billion dollars.

According to the Green Bond Impact Report, $3 billion of this is allocated to specific projects.

$550 million is spread across 50 projects revolving around energy efficiency and renewable energies.

These projects are expected to save almost 2.9 million tons of CO2, generate 1.854 million megawatt hours of clean energy annually and provide 699 megawatts of newly installed renewable energy capacity.

One project revolves around "green" aluminum - i.e. aluminum that is produced without CO2 emissions.

The material was already used in some MacBook Pros in 2019 and should also find its way into the iPhone.

Another part of the green bonds was used to power an Apple data center near the Danish city of Viborg with energy from a wind farm - the surplus electricity is then fed into the Danish grid.

The server center is to be further expanded so that the heat emitted can be collected and used.