Morning Commentary: Marsh & McLennan to tap dollar notes; Webster on deck; RBS firms

By Cristal Cody

Tupelo, Miss., March 20 – Marsh & McLennan Cos., Inc. plans to tap the high-grade dollar-denominated primary market with a reopening of its 4.375% notes due March 15, 2029 a week after pricing reverse Yankee bonds.

Marsh & McLennan priced $1.25 billion of the 10-year notes on Jan. 8 at a spread of 165 basis points over Treasuries.

On March 14, the company sold €1.1 billion of reverse Yankee bonds in two tranches.

In other primary action announced early Wednesday, Webster Financial Corp. is marketing new senior notes.

High-grade issuers have priced more than $12 billion of bonds week to date.

About $20 billion to as much as $30 billion of deal volume was expected by syndicate sources this week.

Market focus over the session is expected to center on the outcome of the Federal Reserve’s two-day monetary policy meeting that ends on Wednesday.

In the secondary market, the Royal Bank of Scotland Group plc’s $2 billion of 4.269% fixed-to-floating rate senior notes due March 22, 2025 (Baa2/BBB-/A) that priced on Tuesday tightened 5 bps, a source said.

The notes were priced at par to yield a spread of 185 bps over Treasuries. The issue has a fixed rate until June 22, 2024 and then will reset to a floating rate of Libor plus 176.2 bps to but excluding the maturity.

Trading volume climbed in the high-grade secondary market on Tuesday with $23.22 billion of bonds traded, up from $19.1 billion on Monday, according to Trace.

© 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.