Verizon Communications Inc. plans to sell $45 billion to $49 billion of bonds in an eight-part offering as soon as tomorrow that would be the largest on record, according to a person with knowledge of the transaction.

The sale, intended to finance a $130 billion purchase of Vodafone Group Plc's 45 percent stake in Verizon Wireless, would be more than twice the size of Apple's Inc.'s unprecedented $17 billion issue in April, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Verizon is planning to sell fixed-rate debt with maturities ranging from three to 30 years as well as two portions of floating-rate securities, said another person, who asked not to be identified because terms aren't set.

"It's very difficult to find an issuer with this type of cachet," said Thomas Chow, a Philadelphia-based money manager at Delaware Investments who helps oversee about $130 billion in fixed-income assets. "It's a market leader, has great assets, operating leverage, and generates a large amount of free cash flow that allows for deleveraging," he said. "As an investor, you've checked every box that you'd want to have checked."