Netflix plans to continue burning through cash in order to fund a push for more original programming and subscribers.
The streaming giant on Monday announced plans to raise $2 billion through a bond offering, which will be issued in dollars and euros and take the company’s debt past $10 billion for the first time.
The move comes on the heels of Netflix’s third quarter report last week, which surpassed analysts’ expectations for subscriber growth with 7 million new customers worldwide.
Netflix has made no secret of its strategy to spend as much cash prioritizing original series and films. “We recognize we are making huge cash investments in content, and we want to assure our investors that we have the same high confidence in the underlying economics as our cash investments in the past,” Netflix said in an Oct. 16 letter to shareholders, per Variety. “These investments we see as very likely to help us to keep our revenue and operating profits growing for a very long time ahead.”
Through Sept. 30, Netflix had reported $8.34 billion in long-term debt, which was up 71% from $4.89 billion the previous year. Netflix’s free cash flow in Q3 2018 was $859 million; the same quarter a year earlier was $465 million. The company last week said it anticipates burning roughly $3 billion in cash this year.
