Eastman Chemical prices tenders for $500 million of four notes series

By Jennifer Chiou

New York, Nov. 30 - Eastman Chemical Co. announced the considerations to be paid in its recently increased tender offer for several series of its securities.

The company will now accept $500 million of notes, up from $400 million.

The debt securities covered by the offer are the company's $500 million of 7.25% debentures due 2024, $200 million of 7.625% debentures due 2024, $300 million of 7.6% debentures due 2027 and $181,536,000 of 6.3% notes due 2018.

The 7.25% debentures and 7.625% dentures have an acceptance priority level of 1. The acceptance priority level is 2 for the 7.6% debentures and 3 for the 6.3% notes.

The purchase prices include an early tender premium of $30.00 for each $1,000 principal amount of notes tendered by the early tender date. The company will pay $1,229.17 for the 7.25% debentures, $1,265.52 for the 7.625% debentures, $1,216.61 for the 7.6% debentures and $1,161.37 for the 6.3% notes.

The purchase prices for the notes were determined using a fixed spread over the yield based on the bid-side price of the applicable U.S. Treasury security at 2 p.m. ET on Nov. 30.

The 4.375% Treasury due May 15, 2040 will be used to determine the price for the 7.6% debentures, and the 2.625% Treasury due Aug. 15, 2020 will be used for the other three series of notes. The spread was 210 basis points for the 7.25% debentures, 215 bps for the 7.625% debentures, 145 bps for the 7.6% debentures and 115 bps for the 6.3% notes.

Holders will also receive accrued interest up to but excluding the settlement date.

The offer began on Nov. 9 and will expire at midnight ET on Dec. 8.

The early tender date was 5 p.m. ET on Nov. 23. As of that time, holders had tendered $541,816,000 of notes, including $255,489,000 of the 7.25% debentures, $146,099,000 of the 7.625% debentures, $76,579,000 of the 7.6% debentures and $63,649,000 of the 6.3% notes.

As noted, the tender offer is subject to the completion of an offering of debt securities and the receipt of tenders for at least $200 million of the priority-one debentures.

The dealer managers are Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. (866 627-0391), J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (866 834-4666) and Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc. (800 624-1808). The information agent is Global Bondholder Services Corp. (866 387-1500 or 212 430-3774).

Eastman makes chemicals, fibers and plastics and is based in Kingsport, Tenn.

© 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.