CoreWeave plans to raise at least $4 billion through an investment-grade loan that could reach investors as soon as next week, after the AI computing provider raised its annual revenue forecast on 10 November, Zhitong Finance reported. Preliminary discussions put the new loan’s yield at 7% to 7.5%, roughly half the yield on CoreWeave’s existing junk bonds.
Key points
- Morgan Stanley and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group are leading work on the potential loan, which has not been finalised.
- Chief financial officer Nitin Agrawal expects CoreWeave’s next investment-grade loan to yield 7% to 7.5%.
- CoreWeave’s 9.625% notes due July 2032 traded at a 14.21% yield on 11 November.
- The company forecast annual revenue of $13 billion to $13 billion, above Wall Street’s $13 billion average estimate.
Morgan Stanley and MUFG lead loan preparations
Morgan Stanley and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group, known as MUFG, are leading the potential financing, Zhitong Finance reported, citing people familiar with the matter. The loan would be distributed to a group of investors in tranches. The plans remain subject to change.
The reported structure would extend CoreWeave’s use of chips and customer contracts as collateral for borrowing. The company has relied on high-yield bonds to fund its data centre expansion, while loans backed by its equipment and contracted revenue have given it access to lower borrowing costs.
Zhitong Finance reported that CoreWeave and Morgan Stanley declined to comment on the proposed transaction, while MUFG did not respond to its request for comment. The people who described the plans to the publication were not authorised to speak publicly.
Agrawal puts next loan yield at 7%
CoreWeave chief financial officer Nitin Agrawal told analysts on the company’s 10 November earnings call that he expected its next investment-grade delayed draw term loan to yield 7% to 7.5% at the prevailing benchmark interest rate, FourWeekMBA reported. A delayed draw facility lets a borrower take funds over time rather than all at once.
Agrawal distinguished debt secured by customer contracts and cloud infrastructure from borrowing at the parent-company level. He said rating agencies had indicated a high investment-grade rating for the next facility. His pricing expectation concerned that proposed facility, rather than a completed loan.
CoreWeave’s 9.625% notes due July 2032 last traded at 82.50 on 11 November, giving them a 14.21% yield, according to FINRA TRACE bond-trading data read by FourWeekMBA. The publication put yields on the company’s four fixed-rate note lines at 14.21% to 15.14% at their last recorded trades.
CoreWeave’s bonds had already drawn attention before the latest earnings report. An earlier AI Affairs report on its credit swaps recorded a yield above 15% on the 2032 bond in October.
Meta contract backed March’s $8.5 billion loan
CoreWeave arranged an $8.5 billion investment-grade delayed draw term loan in March, secured by infrastructure and a contract with Meta Platforms. FourWeekMBA reported that CoreWeave’s 31 March release described the facility as non-recourse, with ratings of A3 from Moody’s and A (low) from DBRS.
That earlier loan had a floating-rate portion priced at 2.25 percentage points above the Secured Overnight Financing Rate, or SOFR, and a fixed-rate portion costing approximately 5.9%. MUFG and Morgan Stanley acted as co-structuring agents and joint bookrunners on that transaction.
The March facility was backed by a particular customer contract, rather than solely by the parent company. The approach of pledging chips and related contracts was expected to carry over into the proposed financing.
CoreWeave lifts 2026 revenue forecast
CoreWeave projected on 10 November that its revenue for 2026 would reach $13 billion to $13 billion. That exceeded both its previous guidance range and Wall Street’s average estimate of $13 billion.
The scale of the company’s infrastructure spending also reaches beyond its own balance sheet. An earlier AI Affairs report covered a Blue Owl-backed developer raising $1.1 billion for a CoreWeave data centre.
On the 10 November earnings call, Agrawal said he expected the next investment-grade facility to finance more than 90% of its associated capital spending, FourWeekMBA reported.
