Alphabet’s record-breaking $85B raise for Google’s AI business is a helluva good signal

If Alphabet’s record-breaking, $85 billion stock sale signals investor appetite for AI-related offerings — and it does — we can safely say that investors are voracious. Google’s parent company had initially intended to sell a first tranche of $40 billion worth of various equity instruments — two different classes of shares, plus smaller “depositary shares” priced to be accessible to a broader range of investors. But the offering was so oversubscribed that it raised $45 billion instead, CEO Sundar Pichai said in a post on X on Monday. Among the buyers: Berkshire Hathaway, still known for its love of value investing, picked up $10 billion worth. Alphabet plans to sell another $40 billion worth its next quarter, for $85 billion total. Even $80 billion would have topped the record for equity offerings previously set by Brazilian oil producer Petroleo Brasileiro SA, which raised $70 billion in 2010, Bloomberg reports. Now, it’s true that these investors are buying shares of Alphabet, not shares in a younger, possibly debt-riddled AI startup. Alphabet is a very healthy business: $110 billion in revenue (with high profit margins) in Q1 alone, up 22% year-over-year. Still, the money from this stock sale is earmarked for AI. “Part of our multi-year investment strategy to meet the AI opportunity ahead and support the demand we’re seeing from enterprises and consumers,” as Pichai described it. …