Sharjah launches $1 billion seven-year sukuk; Atento prices add on; Georgia’s Silknet joins calendar

By Rebecca Melvin

New York, March 26 – The government of the Emirate of Sharjah launched a $1 billion seven-year sukuk, or Islamic bond, on Tuesday and other deals trickled in, including Atento SA’s $100 million add on to its 6 1/8% senior secured notes due 2022, as the secondary market remained firm and investors eyed conclusion of the first quarter of 2019 this week.

The Sharjah notes were launched to yield mid-swaps plus 155 basis points, which represented pricing that was tightened from initial talk at mid-swaps plus 180 bps. Order books were said to have reached $4.3 billion at the time of launch. The new issue premium for the notes was said to be very small.

And Indian Railway Finance Corp. Ltd. priced $500 million five-year notes that were priced under the company’s $2 billion euro medium-term note program.

The proceeds of the Regulation S notes will be used to fund the acquisition of rail assets, which Indian Railway Finance will lease to Indian Railways, and to meet the debt-financing needs.

In addition, Geophysical Substrata Ltd. priced a $114.5 million add-on to its 8% guaranteed medium-term notes due 2023 (B/B) at par plus accrued interest. The new notes will form one series with an existing $151.5 million of 8% notes, which priced Dec. 20, 2018, and are guaranteed by subsidiaries SDP Services Ltd. and EICR (Cyprus) Ltd.

The new total deal size of $266 million. Both tranches priced under the company’s $400 million multicurrency medium-term note program.

Meanwhile, Georgia’s telecommunications company Silknet JSC announced plans to price U.S. dollar-denominated five-year senior notes. The notes are non-callable for three years, and the deal size is expected to total $200 million.

Proceeds are expected to be used mainly to refinance the company’s existing debt.

There were a number of tender offers being held in emerging markets as well. Millicom International Cellular SA began a consent solicitation for its $500 million 6% senior notes due 2025. The company is seeking consents primarily to generally conform certain terms in the indenture governing the 6% notes to those in the indentures governing all of its other outstanding notes, including its $750 million 6¼% senior notes due 2029, $500 million 5 1/8% senior notes due 2028 and $500 million 6 5/8% senior notes due 2026. Millicom said the proposed amendments would reduce administrative complexity and simplify compliance and governance by making its obligations across the indentures more uniform, thus giving it similar operational and financial flexibility.

Klabin SA launched a five-day tender offer to purchase for cash any and all of its outstanding $500 million 5¼ notes due 2024. The tender offer is conditioned on Klabin Austria GmbH pricing a new series of notes.

Petroleo Brasileiro SA said holders had tendered and it has accepted for purchase $1,859,033,000 and €368,598,000 of wholly owned subsidiary Petrobras Global Finance BV’s notes as of 5 p.m. ET on March 25, the early tender deadline of its waterfall offers to purchase nine series of notes.

The secondary market was firm with investors eyeing the end of the first quarter on Friday. The quarter was favorable for equities, fixed income and credit, but the outlook for the second and third quarters is for muted performance.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.