Apple prices $5.5 billion; JetBlue, Flex, Kommuninvest in primary; corporate inflows decline

By Cristal Cody

Tupelo, Miss., Aug. 13 – High-grade supply on Thursday included deals from Apple Inc., Flex Ltd., JetBlue Airways Corp. and Kommuninvest I Sverige AB.

Apple priced $5.5 billion of notes (Aa1/AA+/) in four tranches, all tighter than talk.

Flex priced an upsized $575 million two-part reopening of existing senior notes (Baa3/BBB-/BBB-) following a virtual roadshow and fixed income investor calls earlier in the week.

JetBlue Airways sold $115,584,000 of class B pass-through trust certificates (Baa2/BBB/) at par to yield 8%, tighter than initial talk at the 8.5% area.

JetBlue was in the primary market earlier in the month with $635,462,000 of class A pass-through trust certificates (A2/A) and $172.33 million of class B pass-through trust certificates (Baa2/BBB) that priced on Aug. 3 and are expected to settle on Aug. 17.

In other dollar-denominated supply, Manulife Financial Corp. priced $1.16 billion of 30-year Formosa bonds (/A/A-) in a Regulation S offering.

SSA supply resumes

Also on Thursday, the sovereign, supranational and agency primary market resumed activity after falling silent in August.

Kommuninvest I Sverige AB (Aaa/AAA/) priced $1.25 billion of notes due Dec. 1, 2022 in a Rule 144A and Regulation S deal that attracted more than $2.4 billion in indications of interest.

In addition on Thursday, the Federal Home Loan Bank System priced $1 billion of new two-year Global notes.

Deal volume totals more than $47 billion week to date, surpassing market forecasts of about $25 billion to $30 billion of issuance for the week.

Investment-grade issuers priced more than $13 billion of bonds on Monday, over $18 billion of securities on Tuesday and over $8 billion of notes on Wednesday.

Low coupons have kept issuance active across industries, market sources note.

High-grade corporate funds inflows remained strong but down slightly for the past week ended Wednesday, according to Refinitive Lipper US Fund Flows.

Inflows totaled $6.48 billion, compared to $7.21 billion in the previous week and $7.9 billion in the week prior.

The Markit CDX North American Investment Grade 33 index softened more than 1 basis point on Thursday to end at a spread of 66.64 bps.

The iShares iBoxx Investment Grade Corporate Bond ETF closed the day down 0.89% at 136.03.

The PIMCO Investment Grade Corporate Bond index declined 0.56% to 115.85.

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