Medtronic sold about $17 billion of bonds to help pay for its acquisition of Dublin-based Covidien PLC in the year’s biggest bond sale, topping previous sales by Apple and Alibaba, according to the Wall Street Journal.
 
The sale will help Medtronic finance its planned $43 billion purchase of Covidien, first announced in June. The plans fell under scrutiny at their onset as the deal calls for Medtronic to move its tax domicile to Dublin, where Covidien is headquartered. Though it would officially be an Irish company, Medtronic plans to maintain an “operational headquarters” in Fridley while paying a lower corporate tax.
 

Medtronic restructured the transaction’s financing in October after a tax-rule change by the Treasury Department. The company will now use traditional financing, borrowing roughly $16 billion, instead of relying on $14 billion in cash it holds overseas.
 
Shareholders of both companies are set to vote on the deal on Jan. 6. Medtronic CFO Gary Ellis told analysts last month in a second-quarter earnings call that the setting of the votes was a good indication that the company expects to be able to close the deal early in 2015. The merger agreement requires that a deal be closed no later than June 15, according to The Street.
 
Last week, both the European Union and U.S. Federal Trade Commission cleared the way for the deal with approvals.
 
Shares of Medtronic’s stock are now trading at their highest point all year, and the company’s $74 stock price is up more than 28 percent from the same point a year ago. The stock price has climbed more than 8.5 percent since last month.