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Cash-rich and yield-hungry investors in Taiwan have made the island a haven for debt financing. These investors tend to hold through maturity, letting issuers lock in cheap pricing.

“Taiwan insurance companies don’t have enough good (quality) fixed-income investment targets,” said an official at a local securities house, declining to be identified as he was not authorized to talk to the media.

“But their funds continue to grow because in this low rate macro-environment consumers prefer to buy financial products offered by insurance companies rather than park money in a bank deposit,” he said.

The planned offering is likely to help Apple secure solid partnership with its suppliers, analysts said. Taiwan is home to Apple’s massive supply chain that includes iPhone manufacturer Foxconn, formally known as Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., contract chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and lens producer Largan Precision Co.

Taiwan insurance companies don’t have enough good (quality) fixed-income investment targets

The U.S. dollar bonds will have a tenor of 30 years and be callable after the second year, the sources told Reuters on Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Apple declined to comment when asked about the plan.

So far this year, upwards of US$16 billion in new U.S. dollar bonds have been issued, already more than half of the US$29 billion in U.S. dollar bonds sold for all of 2015, OTC exchange data shows.

The OTC exchange, where corporate bonds can trade in the secondary market, said it was not aware of any plan by Apple to issue bonds. In Taiwan, bond issuers only need three days or less to notify the exchange before being listed.

Market participants have been looking at initial yields of around 4.2 per cent to 4.3 per cent on the planned Apple bonds, two of the sources said.

The island’s 30-year government bond, which is less liquid in the secondary market, was last quoted around 1.6475 per cent.

Thomson Reuters