Primary turns quiet, though MDC on tap; new Kraton, Cinemark busy; funds gain $1.679 billion

By Paul Deckelman and Paul A. Harris

New York, March 17 – After seven consecutive sessions of pricing activity dating back to last Tuesday, the high-yield primary market quieted down on Thursday, with no new U.S. dollar-denominated and fully junk-rated offerings heard to have gotten done.

However, there was some news coming out of the new-deal realm, with marketing and communications company MDC Partners Inc. said by syndicate sources to be shopping around an $800 million offering of eight-year notes. The deal is likely to price on Friday.

Elsewhere, activity was muted in both the primary and the secondary market, with some participants attributing at least some of that quietude to external distractions – New York’s iconic annual St. Patrick’s Day parade, giving everybody, whether Irish or not, a ready-made excuse for a celebration, as well as the onset of “March Madness,” with the televised college basketball playoffs getting under way.

A secondary trader said that while activity was relatively light, the market had a firmer tone to it, following the lead of equities and oil, both of which rose on Thursday.

Among recent new issues, Wednesday’s new deals from movie theater operator Cinemark Holdings, Inc. and chemical maker Kraton Polymers LLC were seen busy, with the latter moving up several points on the session.

Flows of investor cash into or out of high-yield mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, considered a reliable barometer of overall junk market liquidity trends – stayed strongly positive this week, posting their fifth consecutive advance and fourth straight sizable gain, as $1.679 billion more came into those weekly-reporting-only domestic funds than left them during the week ended Wednesday.

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