Morning Commentary: ERP Operating, Wisconsin Power, Cabot on deck; focus turns to Fed

By Cristal Cody

Tupelo, Miss., June 17 – A handful of high-grade issuers announced new bond offerings over the morning on Monday.

ERP Operating LP is offering 10-year notes.

Wisconsin Power and Light Co. plans to sell fixed-rate debentures.

Cabot Corp. is marketing new senior notes.

In other deal action on Monday, Fiserv, Inc. announced a registered three-part offering of euro-denominated notes and a two-tranche offering of sterling-denominated notes after the company priced $9 billion of notes in four tranches on June 10. Fiserv held a roadshow in Europe last week following the dollar-denominated offering.

The Brookfield, Wis.-based provider of financial services technology announced in January that it plans to acquire First Data Corp. in an all-stock transaction valued at about $22.7 billion.

Proceeds from the euro and sterling notes, along with the dollar-denominated offering, will be used in part to refinance First Data’s debt when the acquisition closes, which is expected before the end of the year. As of March 31, First Data had about $17.4 billion of total debt.

Supply is expected to thin this week due to heavier-than-expected volume over the previous two weeks and the Federal Reserve’s monetary policy decision due on Wednesday, sources said.

About $15 billion to $20 billion of investment-grade corporate issuance is forecast for the week with issuance likely to be front-loaded ahead of the Fed meeting. Some market sources estimate as little as $10 billion of volume for the week.

More than $28 billion of corporate bonds were sold last week, along with nearly $10 billion of sovereign, supranational and agency bonds.

The first week of June racked up more than $24 billion of corporate issuance.

© 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.