Near-Record Bond Sale to Help Finance Anheuser-Busch, SABMiller Merger

Anheuser-Busch plans to offer the second-largest corporate bond sale on record in order to fund its acquisition of rival SABMiller.

Reports set the price tag at $46 billion, which would fall behind the $49 billion sale by Verizon to fund its buyout of Vodaphone in 2013.

The company originally planned to sell $30 billion in bonds and offer billions more in other markets at a later date, according to The Wall Street Journal, but investors poured more than $100 billion in orders into the company.

The enthusiastic response reflected strong bond markets as well as confidence in the world's largest brewer. Additional sales are still possible, the Journal reported.

The more than $100 billion takeover bid would join the world's top two brewing giants in an effort to increase their reach into emerging markets, but the proposal is undergoing scrutiny from antitrust regulators.

Anheuser-Busch and SABMiller would control about 30 percent of the global beer market, but the company could spin off SABMiller's stake in the MillerCoors joint venture as well as European brands Grolsch and Peroni.