A long freeze in the junk bond market thawed on Thursday as midstream energy company Targa Resources Partners became the first business to sell below-investment-grade bonds since November.

Targa, which has credit ratings at the upper end of the speculative-grade spectrum, sold $1.5bn of eight and 10-year bonds, twice the amount initially expected. In another sign of a strengthening corporate debt market, investment-grade Anheuser-Busch InBev also sold $15.5bn of bonds Thursday, the largest since October, as the beer giant moved to repay existing debt.