Third Point eyes 10-year bond offering; supply tops $42 billion; Merck bonds trade tighter

By Aleesia Forni

Virginia Beach, Feb. 6 – Third Point Re (USA) Holdings Inc. announced on Friday its plans to price a 10-year offering of bonds due 2025 through a subsidiary, closing out an active week for the investment-grade market that topped expectations.

The high-grade primary saw more than $42 billion of new issuance price this week, besting what was predicted to be $25 billion to $30 billion of supply.

Meanwhile, cash continued to pour into high-grade bond funds.

Lipper reported inflows of $4.376 billion into corporate investment-grade bond funds for the week ended Feb. 2, the second-largest inflow on record for the asset class.

The total was up from last week’s inflows of $2.87 billion, bringing the year-to-date total inflows to $12.846 billion.

The orderbook for Caisse d'Amortissement de la Dette Sociale’s $3.5 billion offering, which sold on Thursday, reached $4.4 billion, according to a company release.

In the secondary market, investment-grade bond spreads traded better.

The Markit CDX North American Investment Grade index was 3 basis points tighter to a spread of 66 bps.

The fixed-rate tranches of Merck & Co., Inc.’s recently priced $8 billion of bonds traded better in the secondary market on Friday.

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