Banc of America remains top U.S. market convertibles underwriter year to date

• U.S. market convertibles issuance totals $54.69 billion year to date

• June convertibles issuance totals $7.08 billion in 17 deals

By Rebecca Melvin

New York, June 30 - Banc of America remained the top U.S. market convertible underwriter for the first half of 2008, accounting for $10.24 billion in 19 deals, or 18.7% of total issuance, according to data compiled by Prospect News.

Citigroup was the No. 2 U.S. market convertible underwriter, with 19 deals totaling $8.86 billion, or 16.2% of the total.

Lehman Brothers displaced JPMorgan for third place, running the books on 12 deals totaling $8.42 billion, or 15.39% of the total.

New issuance for the year to date stands at $54.69 billion, compared with $58.07 billion for the comparable period of 2007, according to Prospect News data.

The number of new deals stands at 88, compared to 131 deals for the same period of 2007.

June new issuance was $7.08 billion, which was down from $15.76 billion in new issuance in May and $8.12 billion in new issuance in June 2007.

Lehman Brothers was the No. 1 ranking underwriter for June, pricing $2.4 billion in new issuance in three deals, representing just over a third of the total.

Lehman raised capital itself in the form of $2 billion in mandatory convertible preferred stock, representing the month's single largest deal.

The second largest deal was from Sunnyvale, Calif.-based. NetApp Inc., which priced $1.1 billion of convertible bonds, while the third largest came from Fifth Third Bancorp's $1 billion of perpetual convertible preferreds.

KeyCorp's $650 million of convertible preferreds was also one of the month's larger deals, and financials made up a good chunk of the smaller deals, too, including UCBH Holdings Inc.'s $135 million of convertible preferreds, Webster Financial Corp.'s $225 million of convertible preferreds and Citizens Republic Bancorp Inc.'s $120 million of preferreds.

"Big financials slowed down to a trickle," a New York-based sellside desk analyst said regarding June issuance. "I don't know if we'll see more. Maybe we will, but I think that many are maxed out as far as the regulators are concerned."

He explained that the obvious candidates, if they have already issued hybrids and gotten Tier one consideration may not readily be given clearance for additional hybrid issuance.

"There may be a couple more that come to market, but I think we may have a decrease," he said. Other sectors have active issuers as well, however, including energy, mining and agriculture, he said.

July typically marks a reduced level of new issuance from June, the desk analyst said. Last year, there were 27 new deals in June, compared to 12 in July; while in 2006, it went from 20 to 5, and in 2005, it went from 12 to eight.

Year to date

2007 Comparables

	Underwriter	Amount	No.	Share	Rank	Amount	No.	Share
1	Banc of America	10.239	19	18.72%	6	4.947	24	8.52%
2	Citigroup	8.855	19	16.19%	1	8.781	25	15.12%
3	Lehman	8.420	12	15.39%	9	2.986	14	5.14%
4	JPMorgan	6.779	24	12.39%	2	7.976	31	13.73%
5	Goldman Sachs	6.347	17	11.60%	8	3.394	17	5.84%
6	Wachovia	2.293	5	4.19%	13	0.530	4	0.91%
7	Deutsche Bank	2.285	10	4.18%	3	7.321	18	12.61%
8	Merrill Lynch	2.216	16	4.05%	5	5.045	22	8.69%
9	Morgan Stanley	2.106	15	3.85%	4	7.144	13	12.30%
10	Credit Suisse	2.021	13	3.69%	7	4.146	13	7.14%
	Total	54.694	88	58.073	131
	Average size:	0.622	0.443
Second Quarter
					2007 Comparables
	Underwriter	Amount	No.	Share	Rank	Amount	No.	Share
1	Lehman	8.262	11	23.24%	6	2.029	7	6.59%
2	JPMorgan	5.526	14	15.54%	7	1.911	12	6.21%
3	Citigroup	5.134	12	14.44%	2	5.673	13	18.43%
4	Goldman Sachs	4.604	12	12.95%	8	1.484	7	4.82%
5	Banc of America	2.543	13	7.15%	3	3.706	15	12.04%
6	Wachovia	2.136	3	6.01%	15	0.186	2	0.60%
7	Morgan Stanley	1.796	12	5.05%	1	5.951	8	19.33%
8	Deutsche Bank	1.575	5	4.43%	4	3.146	11	10.22%
9	Credit Suisse	1.218	7	3.43%	5	2.270	5	7.37%
10	Merrill Lynch	1.161	8	3.27%	9	1.191	9	3.87%
	Total	35.555	51	30.788	66
	Average size:	0.697	0.466
June
					2007 Comparables
	Underwriter	Amount	No.	Share	Rank	Amount	No.	Share
1	Lehman	2.400	3	33.89%	9	0.302	2	3.72%
2	Goldman Sachs	1.214	5	17.15%	4	0.735	4	9.06%
3	Morgan Stanley	0.878	5	12.39%	8	0.353	3	4.36%
4	Citigroup	0.785	4	11.09%	1	2.294	6	28.26%
5	Merrill Lynch	0.736	4	10.39%	5	0.670	6	8.26%
6	Credit Suisse	0.580	4	8.19%	12	0.165	1	2.03%
7	Banc of America	0.175	3	2.47%	6	0.402	6	4.96%
8	UBS	0.158	1	2.23%	15	0.050	1	0.62%
9	JPMorgan	0.156	4	2.20%	2	1.249	6	15.39%
	Total	7.082	17	8.117	29
	Average size:	0.417	0.280
Prospect News Convertibles Underwriter Rankings

Criteria

• The tables include all underwritten dollar-denominated offerings sold in the United States as public or Rule 144A deals reported to Prospect News.

• Offerings are included in the time period in which they price.

• Amounts are based on the total sales price (face amount multiplied by the offering price). The full amount is credited to the bookrunner (or lead manager if no bookrunners). For multiple bookrunners (or lead managers), the total value is divided equally among all the firms.

• Each tranche is counted as a separate deal.

• Bonds are included that convert into the issuer's or another company's stock or the cash equivalent; bonds that convert into other bonds are excluded.

• Structured products issued by an investment bank and exchangeables for or linked to another company's stock are excluded.

• Units made up of a bond and stock are included; units made up of a bond and warrants are excluded.

• Preferred issues are included using the same criteria as for bonds.

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