Whiting Petroleum’s $1 billion deal up strongly on debut; Chesapeake adds 0.25 point

By Rebecca Melvin

New York, March 24 – Whiting Petroleum Corp.’s newly priced 1.25% convertibles traded up on their debut in secondary market action Tuesday after the Denver-based oil and gas exploration and production company priced $1 billion of the five-year notes at the cheap end of talked terms.

The new Whiting notes were marked at 105 bid, 105.5 offered at the end of the session versus the $30.91 closing share price. That was up about 2.5 points on swap, a syndicate source said.

The Whiting deal was the centerpiece of action in U.S. convertibles on Tuesday, market sources said.

Also in the U.S. primary market is inContact Inc.’s $100 million of seven-year convertible senior notes, which were expected to price after the market close at a 2.5% to 3% coupon and a 30% to 35% initial conversion premium.

But the sudden flurry of new issuance this week hit both the U.S. market and overseas.

Internationally, Aabar Investments PJS priced €2 billion of bonds in two tranches, exchangeable for shares of Italian bank UniCredit SpA. Both Aabar tranches priced at the cheap end of talked terms.

And in the United Kingdom, Market Tech Holdings Ltd. launched and priced £112.5 million of 2%, five-year convertible senior bonds Tuesday at par to yield 4.5% with a 16.5% initial conversion premium.

Back in established issues, Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s three convertible bonds were seen a little stronger on swap as shares added 1%.

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