美股投资级信贷市场：高度聚焦超大规模企业

Headof European andUs Credit Strategy Hyperscalerissuancehasbeenan ever-presentthemeforcreditmarketssince +44-20-754-16176Karthik Nagalingam Q4'25.Al-capexspendinghasbeenthepredominantdriverof USgrowththisyearand the siG market has been at the forefront of funding this build-out. We haverecommendedanimblestancetonavigatethisdebtbarrage.Attheendoflastyear,wepositioned for an underweight in the space and maintained this view throughQ1,given rising investor fears on front-loaded hyperscaler supply.We then wentoverweightatthestartofQ2,asvaluationscheapenednotablyandourcomfortwithcompanyfundamentals was still intact, before shifting toa market-weight in mid-July,asAmazon'ss25bndealdidsignalthathyperscalerissuancewouldbehigherthan our initial expectations. US Credit Strategist+1-212-250-0521 Investordemandforhyperscalersisstillcertainlypresent.Butthemarginalbuyerisbecomingmoreselective,especiallyatlonger-durationtenors,wherewebelieve demand is generallybecomingmore sluggish asunderlying rate volatilityincreases.The recent jumbodeals sincelate-June have requiredwiderconcessions,and secondaryperformancehasbeenweak evenwiththerecentTech rally ahead of the Alphabet deal yesterday.That Alphabet deal itself came in12-15bps cheapto therestof its curve,despitebeingnearly4times oversubscribed Toput theYTD underperformance in perspective,$IG hyperscalers,includingSPCX and NVDA, have widened 32bps this year,compared to $IGNon-Fin ex-hyperscaler spreads whichare-1bp tighterYTD,and have outperformedhyperscalers in everyquarter (Figure1).Hyperscalerunderperformancehas beenmoreacutefurtheroutthecurve,givingtheimpressionthatsiGspreadcurveshavesuddenly steepened across the board.However long-end iG spread curvesteepening islesspronounced whenfocusing onex-hyperscalerbonds (Figure2). This underperformance has been due in large part to outsized supply as theseissuers have continuouslyincreasedtheir capexexpectations and driven downtheirfreecashflowestimatesforthecomingyears (Figure3&4).Thisfundingcyclehasimpacted even the highest rated names,with overall sAA spreads now tradingnearthoseofsAs.Thesamehyperscalersthathavelongbeenviewedashavingthecleanestbalancesheetsarenowabsorbinganever-growingshareofthe siGmarketastheyfundanunprecedenteddata centerbuildout,including semiconductorandpowerinfrastructure. US Credit Strategy of the siGindex sincethe end of 2024,rising toroughly4.3%oftheuniverse(Figure5).WhencombinedwithbroaderTechnologyexposure,thesectorisnowclosetoHealthcare and sits just behind Utilities among the largest non-financial sectorswithin the $iG index (Figure6).And another year of heavy net supply would makethisincreasemorematerial.Ifhyperscalersweretoaddanotherroughly$250bnofnet issuance,while other sectors maintain similar net issuance patterns,Technologyplushyperscalerdebtcouldgrowtoward11%oftheindexbytheendof 2027 and potentially eclipse the Utility sector in terms of size (Figure 7). Thatwould represent a meaningful shift in benchmark construction. about21% of the30-year $iG bucket, whileHyperscalers and TMTtogetheraccount fornearly half of all 30O-yearbonds in the index(Figure 8).AMZNandMETAalonerepresentmore than5%of long-endbondseach,withORCLnot farbehind(Figure 9). This reflects the maturity profile of year-to-date supply. Nearly 40% of30-yeardealsthisyearhavecomefromhyperscalers,versuscloserto20%for7-10yrsupplyand9-13%acrossothertenorbuckets(Figure4).Investors whoownahigher share of long-duration assets therefore have a much larger embeddedexposure to Al capex financing than headline sector weights might suggest. For credit investors,the risk is therefore probably best framed as a portfolioconstruction challenge.Investors who are focused on long-duration assets likepensionfundsand lifeinsurers areconcernedaboutrunningintoconcentrationlimits,giventhe size of the overweights further out the curve,However,thesearestillrelativelystrongassets.Attheissuerlevel,ratingspressureonthehigherratednamesis likelyto remain limited for nowbecause leverage is still low relativetomostcorporatesasweshowedlastmonth.Additionally,mostoftheseissuers stillhave ample liquidity,and management teams have shown flexibility to raisecapital through debt, equity,offbalance sheetleasing,projectfinance deals,andfromtoday'scapexmaytakeagooddealoftimetoshowup.Therecouldbegreaterhyperscaler dispersion in the coming months if Al revenues ramp slower thanexpected, with investorsrewardingissuerswithstrongerfree-cash-flowconversion and more disciplined capital allocation.But for now, we keep theHyperscalersasamarket-weight.Potentialdeal flowthroughSeptemberwill actas a headwind, and the risk of a tactical rise in general marketvolatilityfollowing therecent spike in US real rateswon't helpsentiment on a struggling sector.But weweaknessahead,aswestillseethefundamentalsintactforthesecompaniesoverthe short to medium-term. At a more granular level, hyperscaler long-end bonds have cheapened the mostvisibly,but aggregate siG curves still remain re