Morning commentary: Comcast prices; IBM, Crane, ERP, Enterprise Products in deal pipeline

By Cristal Cody

Tupelo, Miss., Feb. 1 – A busy round of investment-grade supply is expected during Thursday’s session, with one issuer already tapping the primary market at the start of the session.

Comcast Corp. priced $800 million of 4.25% 35-year notes at par with plans to list the notes on the Taipei Exchange. It also plans to launch a concurrent offering of notes that will not be listed on an exchange.

Elsewhere, issuers marketing deals included IBM Credit LLC, Canadian National Railway Co., Crane Co. and ERP Operating LP.

In addition, Enterprise Products Operating LLC is marketing two tranches of senior notes and a separate offering of junior subordinated notes.

Also, Oceaneering International, Inc. is expected to price split-rated 10-year senior notes (Ba1/BBB/) on Thursday.

Deal action in the high-grade bond market has picked up over the last two sessions with market sources expecting about $20 billion of total supply for the week.

The Federal Reserve kept rates unchanged on Wednesday following a two-day monetary policy meeting.

Issuance had waned following strong bank and financial supply in mid-January and with many companies still in earnings reporting blackout periods.

Nearly half of U.S. high-grade issuers have now released their fourth quarter earnings results, according to a BofA Merrill Lynch note released on Thursday.

Meanwhile, investment-grade secondary trading volume has remained strong this week. On Wednesday, $24.25 billion of bonds were traded, compared to $24.15 billion on Tuesday and $18.5 billion on Monday, according to Trace.

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