Upsized Sprint, iHeart drive-bys price; new PetSmart heavily traded; funds gain $1.6 billion

By Paul A. Harris and Paul Deckelman

New York, Feb. 19 – Thursday was drive-by day in the high-yield primary arena. Issuers brought big, opportunistically timed and quickly shopped deals to market, all of which priced after being upsized.

Sprint Corp. did a $1.5 billion offering of 10-year bullet notes, and iHeartCommunications, Inc. came in with $950 million of eight-year secured notes.

Also driving by was Jaguar Land Rover Automotive plc, which brought an upsized £400 million of eight-year paper to market.

Back in the dollar realm, both Sprint and iHeart priced fairly late in the session, and neither was seen immediately trading around, though iHeart’s existing bonds rose in active trading.

Traders saw very heavy volume in Wednesday’s new offering from pet food and supplies retailer PetSmart, Inc. Those bonds continued to trade well north of their par issue price.

Away from the new deals, Ball Corp.’s bonds rose in busy trading after the packaging company announced plans to call two issues of its bonds while also acquiring European beverage-can maker Rexam plc.

Statistical indicators of junk market performance were mixed for a fourth straight day on Thursday.

Another numerical gauge – flows of money into and out of high-yield mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, considered a key barometer of Junkbondland liquidity trends – posted a fourth big net inflow in as many weeks, as $1.64 billion more came into those funds than left them during the latest reporting period.

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