Verso jumps on revised exchange offer; NQ Mobile convertibles steady despite stock slide

By Paul Deckelman

New York, July 3 – Distressed-debt investors went home for the three-day July 4th holiday break after having seen a mostly quiet market on Thursday – with one major exception.

Verso Paper Corp.’s various bonds were seen trading multiple points higher, on brisk volume, in the wake of the new and improved exchange offer the Memphis-based maker of specialty coated papers announced on Wednesday – a key step towards getting its long-delayed merger with sector peer NewPage Holdings Inc. approved. The company is hoping the new debt-swap proposal attracts more support than an earlier plan that was withdrawn back in February due to a lack of investor support.

Elsewhere in the distressed bond space, traders saw at best a mixed bag on light activity.

There were only a few trades seen, mostly small pieces, in such coal names as Walter Energy Inc. and Alpha Natural Resources, Inc. and in normally busy retailers like J.C. Penney Co. Inc.

There were a few trades in the bonds of Texas Competitive Electric Holdings Co. LLC, which were pretty much unchanged on the session, although they ended the week up from where they had been a week earlier.

In the convertibles market, NQ Mobile Inc.'s 2018 paper was quiet Thursday despite a 30% plunge in the underlying shares of the company after news that its independent auditor has asked to expand the scope of its work in examining the company’s financials.

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