ASB, Trimble sell notes; Telus upsizes; supply beats market forecasts; credit spreads ease

By Cristal Cody

Tupelo, Miss., June 7 – In pricing action on Thursday, ASB Bank Ltd. placed $1 billion of five-year notes in two parts following its May roadshow.

Also, Trimble Inc. sold a $900 million two-tranche offering of senior notes.

In addition, Telus Corp. priced $750 million of 30-year senior notes in an offering that was upsized from $500 million.

Corporate and agency issuers have priced more than $33 billion of high-grade bonds over the week, coming in stronger than the $25 billion of deal volume syndicate sources expected.

The Markit CDX North American Investment Grade 30 index widened about 3 basis points to close the day at a spread of 67 bps.

Bonds were mixed in the secondary market with new issues trading mostly tighter, sources said. Western Union Co.’s 4.25% notes due June 9, 2023 were earlier quoted 2 bps in from issuance in secondary trading.

Western Union sold $300 million of the five-year senior notes (Baa2/BBB/BBB+) on Wednesday at a spread of Treasuries plus 145 bps.

Union Pacific Corp.’s $6 billion of fixed-rate senior notes (A3/A-/) priced in seven tranches on Tuesday also were quoted about 3 bps better on the short end to 10 bps on the long end in the secondary market.

Union Pacific’s 3.95% notes due Sept. 10, 2028 were quoted about 3 bps tighter in the 102 bps area. The company sold $1.5 billion of the notes at a Treasuries plus 105 bps spread.

In other secondary trading, Dollar General Corp.’s 4.125% senior notes due May 1, 2028 (Baa2/BBB/) eased 5 bps to 141 bps bid on Thursday, a source said.

Dollar General sold $500 million of the notes on March 26 at a spread of 130 bps over Treasuries.

ASB Bank prices $1 billion

ASB Bank (A1/AA-/AA-) priced $1 billion of notes in two parts in a Rule 144A and Regulation S offering on Thursday, a market source said.

The bank sold $500 million of five-year floating-rate notes at Libor plus 97 bps.

ASB Bank priced $500 million of 3.75% five-year fixed-rate notes with a spread of 110 bps over Treasuries.

Commonwealth Bank of Australia, Citigroup Global Markets Inc., J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and RBC Capital Markets, LLC were the arrangers.

The company held a roadshow in May in Asia and the United States.

ASB Bank is an Auckland, New Zealand-based subsidiary of the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

Trimble raises $900 million

Trimble priced $900 million of senior notes (Baa3/BBB-/) in two parts on Thursday, according to a market source and an FWP filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The $300 million of 4.15% five-year notes priced at a spread of 140 bps over Treasuries. The notes were sold at 99.964 to yield 4.158%.

Trimble placed $600 million of 4.90% 10-year notes at a Treasuries plus 200 bps spread, or 99.867 to yield 4.917%.

Both tranches priced on the tight side of guidance and better than initial talk.

J.P. Morgan Securities, Goldman Sachs & Co., BofA Merrill Lynch, Scotia Capital (USA) Inc. and Wells Fargo Securities LLC were the bookrunners.

Trimble is a Sunnyvale, Calif., technology company.

Telus brings dollar bonds

Telus sold $750 million of 4.60% 30-year senior notes on Thursday at a spread of 160 bps over Treasuries, according to a market source and an FWP filing with the SEC.

The notes (Baa1/BBB+/BBB+) priced at 98.76 to yield 4.677%.

BofA Merrill Lynch, RBC Capital Markets, Barclays, TD Securities (USA) LLC and Wells Fargo Securities were the bookrunners.

Telus is a Vancouver, B.C.-based telecommunications company.

Funds see inflow

Investment-grade corporate funds experienced a respectable inflow of $1.325 billion for the June 6, according to fund-flow statistics generated by AMG Data Services Inc.

That came after inflows of $0.849 billion, $2.529 billion, $3.069 billion, $0.804 billion and $0.997 billion in the preceding weeks, as reported by the Arcata, Calif.-based unit of Thomson Reuters Corp’s Lipper analytics division.

The IG funds continue to have seen 10 inflows in the last 10 weeks.

Apart from the Feb. 14 and Feb. 21 weeks, every week so far this year has seen positive flows and in fact before those two weeks in February investment-grade corporates saw a 21-week run of inflows dating back to mid-September, according to a Prospect News analysis of the data.

The latest addition of funds raises the year-to-date inflow for the IG corporates to $47.61 billion from $46.28 billion the week prior, setting another new peak for the year so far.

© 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.