High-grade supply heavy; ViacomCBS, Caterpillar, GM Financial, Williams, Moody’s price

By Cristal Cody

Tupelo, Miss., May 12 – Corporate and sovereign, supranational and agency issuers kept supply heavy in the high-grade primary market on Tuesday with bond deals totaling more than $18 billion.

ViacomCBS Inc. priced $2 billion of senior notes (Baa2/BBB/BBB) in two tranches.

Caterpillar Financial Services Corp. sold $2 billion of senior notes (A3/A/A) in three tranches.

General Motors Financial Co. Inc. (Baa3/BBB/BBB) priced $1.5 billion of three-year senior notes.

Aon Corp. brought $1 billion of 10-year guaranteed senior notes to the primary market.

Williams Cos. Inc. sold $1 billion of senior notes due Nov. 15, 2030 (Baa3/BBB/BBB-) on Tuesday.

Exelon Corp. priced $900 million of five-year senior notes (Baa2/BBB+/BBB).

Appalachian Power Co., which postponed an offering of fixed-rate senior notes on March 20, returned to the market with an upsized $500 million of 30-year senior notes (Baa1/A-) on Tuesday.

Xilinx, Inc. priced $750 million of 10-year senior notes (A3//A-) during the session.

AmerisourceBergen Corp. came by with $500 million of 10-year senior notes.

Moody’s Corp. sold $300 million of 30-year senior notes (BBB+/BBB+).

Other corporate issuers marketing bonds during the session included E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Co., doing business as Corteva Agriscience, and Japan Bank for International Cooperation.

Also on Tuesday, Bank of New York Mellon Corp. priced $1 billion of 4.7% perpetual preferred stock better than talk in the 5.25% area.

Meanwhile, Verizon Communications Inc. tapped the euro-denominated market with two tranches of registered fixed-rate notes on Tuesday.

In SSA issuance, Caisse d'Amortissement de la Dette Sociale (Aa2//AA) priced $3 billion of three-year notes better than guidance.

The Province of Alberta (Aa2/AA) priced a $2.25 billion offering of five-year global notes on top of talk.

The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (Aaa/AAA/AAA) sold $1.75 billion of five-year global notes during the session.

Also, the European Investment Bank (Aaa/AAA/AAA) offered $1 billion of registered global sustainable notes due May 17, 2030 on Tuesday at mid-swaps plus 31 basis points with a book size of more than $5 billion.

About $75 billion to as much as $100 billion of investment-grade supply is expected this week.

More than $23 billion of high-grade bonds priced on Monday, led by Walt Disney Co.’s $11 billion six-part offering of senior notes (A2/A-/A) and PayPal Holdings Inc.’s $4 billion of notes (A3/BBB+/BBB+) sold in four tranches.

In the secondary market, new issues were seen modestly better, a source said.

PayPal’s notes tightened about 1 bp to 5 bps with the three-year tranche the most improved.

The company’s 1.35% notes due June 1, 2023 firmed 5 bps. The notes were priced in a $1 billion offering at 99.908 to yield 1.381%, or a spread of 115 bps over Treasuries. Initial price talk was in the 150 bps spread area.

The Markit CDX North American Investment Grade 33 index firmed less than 1 bp on Tuesday to a spread of 91.56 bps.

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