Sept 2 (Reuters) – Alphabet’s Waymo is in the final stages of talks to raise debt for the first time, seeking more than $3 billion from lenders including Pacific Investment Management and Blackstone, Bloomberg News reported on Wednesday, citing people familiar with the matter.
Competition in the robotaxi sector has been heating up as Waymo jostles with Amazon’s Zoox and Tesla’s self-driving vehicles to emerge as leaders in a market with huge potential.
Here are some details:
• Pacific Investment Management Co., Blackstone and Sixth Street Partners are among the lenders, the report said.
• The debt would be unrated and could price at more than 500 basis points over the benchmark, it said.
• Waymo and Goldman Sachs did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Blackstone, Pimco and Sixth Street Partners declined to comment.
• The company is turning to debt as it expands its driverless fleet and faces rising AI costs, the Bloomberg report said.
• Waymo has been working with Goldman Sachs and aims to finalize the deal in the coming days, though terms could still change, the report said.
• In February, Waymo raised $16 billion in a funding round that valued the startup at $126 billion, nearly tripling its valuation in less than two years.
(Reporting by Anzar Mehraj in Bengaluru; Editing by Sahal Muhammed)
