Japan's eAccess sets tranche sizes, price talk on seven-year deal; Thursday pricing possible

By Paul Deckelman

New York, March 23 - Japan's eAccess Ltd. set tranche sizes Wednesday on its planned two-part, dual currency offering of seven-year senior notes, and price talk emerged on those dollar and euro tranches, according to high-yield syndicate sources.

The Tokyo-based provider of mobile broadband and voice services will sell $400 million of the dollar-denominated bonds and €200 million of the euro-denominated paper.

The sources heard price talk on the dollar tranche of a yield in the 8¼% area, with the euro paper expected to yield 12.5 basis points above the dollar yield.

Order books on the dollar tranche were closed at 4 p.m. ET on Wednesday. The books on the euro tranche will close at 8 a.m. ET Thursday, while the Asian books will close on Thursday at the end of business there. Pricing could occur afterward.

eAccess began shopping the bond deal around to potential investors on March 10 - ironically, the day before Japan was hit with a massive earthquake, followed by an equally catastrophic tsunami. The disaster apparently did not dissuade the company from going forward with the bond deal, and it shopped the transaction around to investors in the United States and Europe.

eAccess plans to use the new-deal proceeds, together with borrowings under a new senior secured credit facility, to repay and terminate its old credit facilities; the bond-deal proceeds are to be escrowed pending the funding under the new credit facility, which is expected to take place on March 31.

UBS Investment Bank is the lead left bookrunner for the Rule 144A and Regulation S for life deal. ING Financial Markets LLC and Credit Agricole CIB are the joint bookrunners.

The bonds carry four years of call protection. Moody's Investors Service rates them at Ba3, while Standard & Poor's gives them a BB rating.

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