Primary quiet as $4.58 billion week concludes; Transocean terms emerge

By Paul Deckelman

New York, May 5 – The high-yield primary sphere closed out the first trading week in May on a quiet note on Friday, with no dollar-denominated and fully junk-rated issues pricing during the session.

The day’s sole pricing activity took place in the European market, as Norican A/S, a Danish provider of metal parts machining and preparation equipment and services, priced €340 million of six-year secured notes.

While no dollar pricings actually occurred on Friday, the sources said that partial terms emerged on a recent private placement by Swiss global maritime energy drilling contractor Transocean Ltd. That company sold $410 million of five-year secured paper to help fund the construction of a deepwater drilling rig.

Avantor, a materials supplier to the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, was heard to be in the process of lining up at least $5 billion of bank debt and bond financing for its planned acquisition of sector peer VWR International Inc. However, while the bank debt is rapidly taking shape, details on the bond portion of the financing have yet to emerge.

In the secondary arena, traders said that Thursday’s deals, including Wynn Resorts Ltd., New Gold Inc. and AV Homes, Inc. all continued to trade at a premium to their issue prices.

Statistical market performance measures turned mixed on Friday after being lower across the board on Thursday.

For the week, the indicators moved lower versus where they had finished last Friday.

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