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By John Balassi
Feb 11 (IFR) - The new issue calendar picked up Monday withfive high-grade deals announced. On the back of last week'srespectable US$14.139bn in volume, when IBM and AT&T drovesupply, a blue-chip Yankee telecom name is moving today'sprimary market.
The combination of earnings-related blackout periods, there-emergence of eurozone tail risks, and fears of rising rateshave limited supply volumes to between US$11bn and US$14bn overthe last three weeks. Syndicate desks expect estimates in thesame range for the next several weeks before volumes pick up inMarch.
Corporate issuers have shown themselves aware of investors'shorter-duration mandates within the current rising rateenvironment. Seven of the eleven tranches bought on Monday havetenors of five years or less, including two floaters. Thisfollows three floaters issued last week, when a total of elevenof 16 tranches were five years or less in maturity.
Among the sizable offerings in the market on Monday isVodafone Group PLC, which is out with a USD benchmarkSEC registered five-part deal that consists of a fixed & FRNthree-year, five-year, 10-year, and 30-year senior notes.Barclays, HSBC, JPM, MS and MUS are the joint books.
Price guidance on the Vodafone deal is 3mo Libor equivalentson the 3yr FRN, T+60bp area on the 3yr fixed, T+80bp area on the5yr fixed, T+110bp area on the 10yr fixed and T+130bp-135bp onthe 30yr fixed. Area is +/- 5bp.
Vodafone last came to the US dollar market on March 13, 2012with a US$1bn 1.625% 5yr at T+80bp. The 2017s were last tradingat T+48bp. Before that Vodafone priced a two-part deal on March9, 2011 that consisted of a US$600m 2.875% 5yr at T+85bp and aUS$500m 4.375% 10yr at T+100bp.
Kellogg Co launched a US$650m no grow SEC registeredtwo-part deal that consists of a US$250m two-year (2/13/15) FRNat 3mL+23bp and a US$400m 10-year (3/1/23) fixed senior note at87.5bp. Proceeds are being used for general corporate purposes,including the repayment of US$750m 4.25% senior notes due3/6/13. Price guidance on the 2yr FRN was 3mL+25bp and T+90bparea on the 10yr fixed.
Airgas Inc launched a US$600m (upsized from US$500m)SEC registered two-part senior note deal that consists of aUS$325m five-year at T+85bp and a US$275n seven-year at T+105bp.Proceeds are being used for general corporate purposes,including to fund acquisitions, repay indebtedness under the CPprogram and to repurchase shares. Price guidance was T+95bp onthe 5yr and T+115bp on the 7yr.
Also in the market are a pair of Yankee issuers, Russiansteel maker NLMK, which launched a US$800m 5-yearUSD-denominated bond issue at 4.45%, and Banco de Bogota, with a US$500m 10-year subordinated bond offering withrevised price guidance to 5.375% area.
At midday, the CDX indices were trading near the worstlevels of the year, with the IG19 at 89.9375-90.1875 and theHY19 at 102.125-102.1875. Meanwhile, the long-end of theTreasury curve was relatively unchanged, with the 10-year yield0.2bp higher at 1.957%.
U.S. Treasuries..........
U.S. Treasury outlook...
U.S. corporate bonds....
U.S. agencies...........
U.S. mortgage-backeds...
U.S. asset-backeds......
U.S. municipal bonds... (Reporting by John Balassi; Editing by Marc Carnegie)
