Charter, Vizient upsize, price, Acadia too, trades busily; Freeport up more; funds off $41 million

By Paul Deckelman and Paul A. Harris

New York, Feb. 4 – The high-yield primary sphere saw its busiest day of the year so far – in fact, its most active session since last November – as a trio of issuers brought $2.69 billion of new U.S. dollar-denominated, fully junk-rated paper to market in three tranches.

The big deal of the day was an upsized $1.7 billion eight-year drive-by issue from cable operator Charter Communications, Inc.

The day’s other two deals both came out of the healthcare sector. Vizient, Inc., a network of not-for-profit healthcare organizations, priced an upsized $600 million of eight-year notes in a regularly scheduled forward calendar offering. The notes were quoted up a point or so.

Acadia Healthcare Co., Inc., a provider of inpatient behavior health services, did $500 million of eight-year notes, also coming off the forward calendar. The new notes were among the most heavily traded in Junkbondland; they initially jumped out to a big gain over their issue price but had given back at least half of that by the time trading wound down.

Away from the new issues, Freeport McMoRan Inc. paper continued its upside ride, posting its fifth straight session of sizable gains following the metals mining and oil and gas company’s ratings downgrade; a combination of higher copper prices and junk investors stepping in to buy the now-split-rated bonds were seen driving the gains.

Another numerical measure – the flow of investor cash into or out of high-yield mutual funds and exchange-traded funds – resumed its mostly negative pattern for the year so far, posting a small outflow of roughly $41 million in the latest week.

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