Cellco Partnership/Verizon Wireless Capital is in the investment-grade corporate bond market Friday with a new benchmark-sized offering, according to a person familiar with the deal.

The deal comes just a day after highly rated companies sold $16 billion in new bonds, as borrowers jostle to capitalize on renewed investor confidence.

Proceeds of the Cellco Partnership/Verizon Wireless' bonds will be used to repay a portion of the money the company borrowed in June to support its acquisition of regional telecoms group, Alltel (AT) from private-equity firm TPG and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), according to the person.

The amount of bonds to be sold is still being determined, but the benchmark-size means that Cellco Partnership/Verizon Wireless Capital is planning to sell at least $500 million of bonds. One investor looking at the deal said, however, he expects the company to raise at least $1 billion with this transaction.

The Cellco deal originally was just a five-year bond, but a three-year note was added later. The spread, or risk premium, on the five-year is around 395 basis points over Treasury yields and the three-year fixed portion would be 15 to 20 basis points wider of the five-year spread, according to another person familiar with the deal.

For comparison, fellow telecommunications company AT&T Inc. (T) sold $5.5 billion of bonds in three parts Thursday. One tranche of the deal was a $1 billion 4.85% bond due 2014. That priced at a discount to par value at 99.994 to give a 4.851% yield and a spread of 300 basis points over Treasurys.

Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank Of Scotland are joint lead managers on Cellco Partnership/Verizon Wireless' bond deal. They were also part of the seven-strong bank group which sold about $2.4 billion of bonds to investors in Europe for the company in December.

Cellco Partnership is a Delaware general partnership doing business as Verizon Wireless. Verizon Communications Inc. (VZ) owns 55% of the partnership, while the U.K.'s Vodafone Group PLC (VOD.LN) owns 45%, according to Fitch Ratings.

- By Kate Haywood, Dow Jones Newswires; 201-938-2348; kate.haywood@dowjones.com

(Romy Varghese contributed to this report.)

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