Primary quiet, but Plantronics slates; new Energizer heavily traded; new Bellatrix busy

By Paul A. Harris and Paul Deckelman

New York, May 18 –The high-yield primary sphere began the new week on Monday on a quiet note, with syndicate sources reporting no new junk-rated, dollar-denominated issues from domestic or industrialized-country borrowers having priced.

That was down from Friday, when two tranches of such paper totaling $850 million came to market, and way down from Thursday, when the new-issue tally zoomed to $5.9 billion from seven issuers in nine tranches, one of the busiest days of the year so far in Junkbondland.

The primary was not completely without any news, however, as the sources said that electronics manufacturer Plantronics, Inc. was getting ready to hit the road Tuesday to market a $500 million offering of eight-year notes to potential investors.

With no new deals having priced during the session, the secondary market remained largely focused on the deals that had gotten done over the previous several sessions.

Friday’s 10-year note offering from a soon-to-be spun-off unit of Energizer Holdings Inc. behaved a little like the battery manufacturer’s iconic advertising mascot – the seemingly unstoppable pink wind-up toy bunny continually banging its drum and outlasting everything – in that the issue just kept trading...and trading...and trading, easily outpacing all other bonds and racking up the heaviest volume of the day.

There was also brisk activity – though nowhere near Energizer’s volume – seen in Friday’s other deal, from Canadian energy company Bellatrix Exploration Ltd.

Both of those offerings traded a little above their respective issue prices.

And, as had been the case on Friday, there was busy trading in some of the slew of new deals that had priced on Thursday, including Restaurant Brands International Inc., Spectrum Brands, Inc. and PPL Energy Supply, LLC.

Traders said the overall junk market seemed a little easier on the session.

Statistical market performance indicators were lower across the board on Monday after having been higher all around on Friday and mixed on Wednesday and Thursday.

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