BofA Merrill Lynch top U.S. market convertibles dealer year to date

• U.S. convertibles issuance $11.58 billion in 33 deals year to date

• March U.S. convertibles issuance totals $3.51 billion in 10 deals

By Rebecca Melvin

New York, March 28 - BofA Merrill Lynch was the top U.S. convertible bond underwriter for the first quarter of 2013, displacing Goldman Sachs & Co., which dropped to second place. BofA Merrill Lynch has brought $2.41 billion in 11 deals, or 21% of total new issuance for the year to date, according to data compiled by Prospect News.

Goldman Sachs & Co. was the No. 2 convertibles underwriter for the year to date, with $2.08 million in 11 deals, or 18% of the total.

J.P. Morgan Securities LLC took the third slot with $1.53 billion of new issuance for the year so far, in 13 deals for 13% of the total, while Morgan Stanley & Co. LLC was fourth with $1.21 billion of new issuance in seven deals, accounting for 10.5% of total issuance.

Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Barclays ranked fifth and sixth, with $923 million and $749 million in issuance, respectively.

Rounding out the top 10 underwriters of U.S. issuance are Citigroup Global Markets Inc., Credit Agricole CIB, Credit Suisse Securities (USA) Inc. and Jefferies & Co.

In total there was $11.58 billion in new issuance in 33 deals for the first three months of the year, which is up from $3.57 billion in 12 deals for the first three months of 2012.

For March alone, BofA Merrill Lynch was the top underwriter of U.S. convertible debt, with $876 million in four deals, accounting for 25% of total issuance. Morgan Stanley was No. 2 with $654 million in two deals, or 18.6% of the total, and Barclays was third with $546 million in three deals for 15.5% of the total.

Goldman Sachs has brought $529 million in two deals for 15% of the total, and JPMorgan was fifth with just $259 million in four deals for 7.4% of the total.

Globally, there has been $27.21 billion of new issuance in 73 deals for the year to date, which was more than double the $11.46 billion in new issuance in 53 deals for the first three months of 2012.

Lead underwriter globally is UBS, accounting for $3.34 billion of the total in 10 deals, for a 12% share. Deutsche Bank was the No. 2 global underwriter with $2.78 billion in 12 deals, accounting for 10.2% of global issuance.

All the new paper issued in the last week of March were international deals and included Air France-KLM Group's €550 million of 2.03% 10-year Oceane bonds, Melia Hotels International SA's €200 million 4.5% five-year convertibles, Obrascon's Huarte Lain's €275 million of 4% five-year bonds and Linc Energy Ltd.'s $200 million of 7% five-year bonds.

Among notable U.S. deals earlier in past month were: Salesforce.com's $1 billion of 0.25% five-year convertible senior notes in the middle of the month. The San Francisco-based developer of cloud computing applications for businesses was sold with a 47% premium via joint bookrunners Morgan Stanley and BofA Merrill Lynch.

Milwaukee-based mortgage insurer MGIC Investment Corp. priced an upsized $450 million of seven-year convertibles notes late Wednesday to yield 2% with a 35% initial conversion premium.

The MGIC deal, which came at the rich end of tightened talk, was sold via Goldman Sachs.

On March 1, Mill Valley, Calif.-based real estate investment trust Redwood Trust Inc. priced an upsized $250 million of five-year convertible senior notes to yield 4.625% with an initial conversion premium of 20%. That deal was via JPMorgan and Barclays as joint bookrunners.

U.S. market, year to date

2012 Comparables

	Underwriter	Amount	No.	Share	Rank	Amount	No.	Share
1	Bank of America	2.411	11	20.83%	1	1.112	6	31.16%
2	Goldman Sachs	2.082	11	17.98%	2	0.995	1	27.88%
3	JPMorgan	1.529	13	13.20%	5	0.307	4	8.61%
4	Morgan Stanley	1.210	7	10.45%	8	0.084	2	2.35%
5	Deutsche Bank	0.923	5	7.97%
6	Barclays	0.749	5	6.47%	3	0.367	3	10.27%
7	Citigroup	0.705	7	6.09%	4	0.334	2	9.35%
8	Credit Agricole	0.562	1	4.86%
9	Credit Suisse	0.399	5	3.45%
10	Jefferies	0.336	3	2.90%
	Total	11.576	33	3.569	12
	Average size:	0.351	0.297
U.S. market, March
					2012 Comparables
	Underwriter	Amount	No.	Share	Rank	Amount	No.	Share
1	Bank of America	0.876	4	24.92%	2	0.837	4	31.36%
2	Morgan Stanley	0.654	2	18.61%	6	0.084	2	3.14%
3	Barclays	0.546	3	15.53%	5	0.150	1	5.62%
4	Goldman Sachs	0.529	2	15.06%	1	0.995	1	37.28%
5	JPMorgan	0.259	4	7.38%	9	0.041	1	1.52%
6	RBC	0.225	1	6.40%	7	0.063	1	2.37%
7	Citigroup	0.162	2	4.61%	3	0.259	1	9.69%
8	Credit Suisse	0.133	1	3.79%
9	Jefferies	0.101	1	2.86%
10	Wells Fargo	0.029	1	0.82%	8	0.041	1	1.52%
	Total	3.514	10	2.669	8
	Average size:	0.351	0.334
Global, year to date
					2012 Comparables
	Underwriter	Amount	No.	Share	Rank	Amount	No.	Share
1	UBS	3.338	10	12.27%	18	0.164	2	1.43%
2	Deutsche Bank	2.782	12	10.23%	3	0.861	8	7.51%
3	Bank of America	2.715	14	9.98%	2	1.483	9	12.94%
4	JPMorgan	2.622	20	9.64%	7	0.552	6	4.81%
5	Goldman Sachs	2.376	15	8.74%	1	2.138	5	18.65%
6	BNP	1.685	9	6.19%	32	0.071	1	0.62%
7	Morgan Stanley	1.625	8	5.97%	5	0.624	5	5.45%
8	Haitong	1.609	1	5.92%
9	Citigroup	1.180	11	4.34%	4	0.824	6	7.18%
10	Barclays	1.165	6	4.28%	6	0.568	4	4.95%
	Total	27.205	73	11.463	53
	Average size:	0.373	0.216
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 (for U.S. deals), or all underwritten offerings (global deals).

• 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.

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

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