High-grade issuance strong; ICE, Honeywell, Dow, Cummins, Duke, Southern, Brixmor in primary

By Cristal Cody

Tupelo, Miss., Aug. 17 – The high-grade primary market opened the week to strong supply with issuers pricing more than $21 billion of bonds over the session.

Intercontinental Exchange Inc. sold $6.5 billion of senior notes (A3/BBB+/) in five tranches on Monday.

Honeywell International Inc. brought $3 billion of two-year senior notes (A2/A/A) in fixed- and floating-rate tranches to the primary market.

General Motors Financial Co., Inc. priced $2.5 billion of senior notes (Baa3/BBB/BBB-) in three tranches, including an add-on to its 3.6% notes due June 21, 2030.

Dow Chemical Co. priced $2 billion of senior notes (Baa2/BBB/BBB+) in two tranches.

Cummins Inc. sold $2 billion of senior notes (A2/A+/) in three tranches.

National Australia Bank Ltd. (Aa3/AA-/AA-) placed $1.5 billion of 10-year senior notes.

Duke Energy Progress Inc. priced $1.3 billion of securities, including floating-rate notes due Feb. 18, 2022 (A2/A-/) and 30-year first mortgage bonds (Aa3/A/).

Santander UK Group Holdings plc sold $1 billion of six-year fixed-rate resetting notes (Baa1/BBB/A) on Monday.

Southern Co. Gas Capital Corp. priced $500 million of guaranteed senior notes due Jan. 15, 2031 (Baa2/BBB+/BBB+) following fixed income investor calls on Thursday and Friday.

Oglethorpe Power Corp. also priced $450 million of 30-year first mortgage bonds (Baa1//BBB+) following the company’s fixed income investor calls held last week.

Brixmor Operating Partnership LP came by with a $300 million add-on to its 4.05% senior notes due July 1, 2030 (Baa3/BBB-/BBB-) that were first priced in June, bringing the total outstanding to $800 million.

In addition, Florida Power & Light Co. offered floating-rate notes due Aug. 24, 2070 (A1/A/) during the session.

Market participants anticipated about $30 billion to $40 billion of front-loaded issuance this week after supply came to more than $47 billion last week.

Market tone was positive over the day.

The Markit CDX North American Investment Grade 33 index tightened more than 1 basis point to a spread of 66.57 bps.

The iShares iBoxx Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF closed up 0.21% to 135.69.

The PIMCO Investment Grade Corporate Bond index improved 0.13% to 115.39.

© 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.