Darden Restaurants taps high-grade primary market; BB&T, Citigroup, Citibank unchanged

By Cristal Cody

Tupelo, Miss., April 10 – Deal volume stayed light on Monday in the high-grade bond market and is expected to remain thin over the shortened holiday week.

Olive Garden operator Darden Restaurants, Inc. tapped the primary market with a $500 million offering of 3.85% 10-year senior notes (Baa3/BBB/BBB). The notes priced at 99.957 to yield 3.855%, or 150 basis points over Treasuries.

BofA Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs & Co., Wells Fargo Securities LLC, Fifth Third Securities Inc., SunTrust Robinson Humphrey Inc. and U.S. Bancorp Investments Inc. were the bookrunners.

Proceeds will be used for the company’s planned merger with Cheddar’s Restaurant Holding Corp.

General Motors Financial Co. Inc. also was expected to price a three-tranche offering of fixed- and floating-rate three-year notes and seven-year fixed-rate notes. Final pricing details were not available by press time.

About $10 billion of weekly deal volume is expected by syndicate sources for the week. The bond markets are set to close early on Thursday and remain shut on Friday for the Good Friday holiday.

The Markit CDX North American Investment Grade index closed on Monday mostly flat at a spread of 65 bps.

Bank and financial paper was mostly unchanged on the day.

BB&T Corp.’s 2.75% senior medium-term notes due 2022 were steady.

Citigroup, Inc.’s 4.75% subordinated notes due 2046 headed out flat.

Citibank, NA’s 2% notes due 2019 were stable.

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