Morning Commentary: Wal-Mart, Sumitomo Mitsui, EIB to tap primary market; Wal-Mart improves

By Cristal Cody

Tupelo, Miss., Oct. 11 – The high-grade bond deal pipeline took shape early Wednesday with several transactions in the works.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. intends to bring a seven-tranche note offering to the primary market. Fitch Ratings said the deal size is $6 billion.

Sumitomo Mitsui Financial Group, Inc. is offering two tranches of senior fixed- and floating-rate notes.

Also on deck, the European Investment Bank (Aaa/AAA/AAA) plans to price an offering of five-year global notes on Wednesday, according to a market source.

The notes were initially talked to price in the mid-swaps plus 10 basis points area.

Barclays, J.P. Morgan Securities LLC and TD Securities (USA) LLC are the lead managers.

The offerings follow a strong session on Tuesday that included bond deals from Northrop Grumman Corp., ConAgra Brands, Inc. and Phillips 66 Partners LP.

About $15 billion to $20 billion of deal volume is expected by market participants for the holiday-shortened week.

High-grade secondary market volume totaled $13.8 billion on Tuesday, according to Trace.

Wal-Mart’s bonds went out on Tuesday mixed but mostly softer, a source said. The company’s 3.25% notes due Oct. 25, 2020 were better at 104.04 over the morning after last trading on Tuesday at 103.82. The notes ended on Tuesday about 1 bp softer at 21 bps bid, a source said.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.