NCI, Centene price first dollar deals of year, new NCI bonds jump, junk mixed on day, week

By Paul Deckelman and Paul A. Harris

New York, Jan. 9 – The high-yield market saw its first dollar-denominated pricings of the new year on Friday, two tranches that totaled $450 million of new junk-rated paper.

High-yield syndicate sources said that NCI Building Systems, Inc., a Houston-based maker of metal products for the nonresidential construction industry in North America, priced $250 million of eight-year notes in a scheduled forward calendar offering. Allocations were very sparse amid brisk demand, pushing the bonds up when they were finally freed to trade.

Centene Corp., a St. Louis-based managed care and specialty healthcare services provider, did a quick-to-market $200 million add-on to its existing 2022 notes.

Those notes firmed modestly when they began to trade.

In the secondary market, traders said that oil and natural gas names like SandRidge Energy Inc. continued to do better – even though crude oil prices finished on the downside after several straight sessions of having firmed.

The overall market was seen generally firmer, including gains in such non-energy credits as Sprint Corp. and Ally Financial Inc.

However, statistical measures of market performance were mixed on the session, after having been higher across the board on Wednesday and Thursday, and were mixed versus where they had finished the previous Friday for a second consecutive week.

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