Ball brings three-part deal; new Ball bonds gain; Synovus, Churchill Downs also price

By Paul Deckelman and Paul A. Harris

New York, Dec. 2 – The high-yield market saw its first dollar-denominated pricing activity in more than a week on Wednesday, when three issuers brought $1.55 billion of new junk bonds to market in three tranches.

The big deal of the session was an upsized €2 billion equivalent of five-year and eight-year paper from Broomfield, Colo., packaging giant Ball Corp. The five-year portion of the transaction was split into dollar- and euro-denominated tranches. Some $1 billion of the dollar bonds priced and were heard by secondary market traders to have firmed smartly from their issue price in heavy initial aftermarket activity.

Once Ball got the ball rolling, two other issuers followed suit, also with upsized offerings.

Banking company Synovus Financial Corp. priced $250 million of 10-year subordinated notes.

And racetrack operator Churchill Downs, Inc. did a $300 million add-on to its existing 2021 notes.

Traders reported not much initial secondary market activity in the latter two notes.

Away from the deals that actually priced, primaryside players were looking for possible pricings on Thursday or Friday from domestic borrowers ClubCorp Holdings, Inc., NGL Energy Partners LP and Mednax, Inc. and, in the European market, from Swissport Investment SA.

Apart from the new-deal arena, traders saw a generally firm market tone but not any overwhelming strength. There was brisk activity in credits such as Frontier Communications Corp. and Charter Communications Inc. Intelsat SA’s bonds continued to gain.

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