Hershey, Travelers price amid quiet primary; Fifth Third tightens; Abbey National improves

By Aleesia Forni and Cristal Cody

Virginia Beach, Aug. 18 – Hershey Co. and Travelers Cos., Inc. priced new bond offerings during a quieter session for investment-grade bonds on Tuesday.

Hershey attracted an order book that was more than 3.5 times oversubscribed for its new $600 million two-part offering.

Tranches of the notes sold 15 basis points tighter than initial price thoughts.

Also, Travelers was in the primary with a $400 million 30-year offering, which sold at the tight end of guidance.

The slower primary follows a frenzied Monday session that hosted eight borrowers and more than $6 billion of new issuance.

The investment-grade market has seen $7.2 billion of supply so far this week, closing in on what was predicted to be around $10 billion of new issuance.

In aftermarket trading, Hershey’s tranche of 3.2% notes due 2025 traded about 1 bp tighter on the bid side.

Fifth Third Bank’s 2.15% senior bank notes due 2018 that were brought to market on Monday tightened 5 bps in secondary trading.

Abbey National Treasury Services plc’s 2% notes due 2018 that priced on Monday traded 1 bp better.

The Markit CDX North American Investment Grade index headed out 1 bp wider at a spread of 78 bps.

The CDX is more than 10 bps wider from a month ago when the index was at a spread of 65.6 bps, according to a Barclays Bank plc market note on Tuesday.

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