Primary ends $976 million week quietly; recent deals firm but Frontier lags; Cablevision slides more

By Paul Deckelman and Paul A. Harris

New York, Sept. 18 – The high-yield market saw a quiet session on Friday – the last summer Friday of the year – with traders reporting a mixed bag of bond price movements in the secondary and no new deals having priced in the primary for a second straight day.

Among prospective new deals currently on the forward calendar, Beacon Roofing Supply Inc. disclosed plans to participate in a conference call with investors on Monday to discuss a $300 million offering of eight-year senior notes, while education software provider Ellucian Co. LP’s planned offering of eight-year notes was heard to have been downsized by $100 million, with those proceeds shifted to a concurrent bank loan financing.

The lack of any pricing activity on Thursday and again on Friday left the week’s total of new U.S. dollar-denominated, fully junk-rated paper from domestic or industrialized-country borrowers right where it had been at the close on Wednesday, $976 million in three tranches.

Among recently priced issues, traders said that this week’s offerings from Berry Plastics Group Inc. and Fresenius SE & Co. KGaA were showing aftermarket strength. But they said the Frontier Communications Corp.’s bonds continued to struggle in secondary dealings.

Cablevision Systems Corp.’s bonds were losing ground for a second consecutive session following Thursday’s surprise announcement that the media company had agreed to sell itself to Europe’s Altice NV in a largely debt-funded transaction for more than $17 billion.

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