Quiet primary, though Comstock slates; Riverbed downsizes; new PetSmart tops actives

By Paul A. Harris and Paul Deckelman

New York, Feb. 25 – It was a quiet day in the high-yield primary arena on Wednesday, with syndicate sources having seen no pricings of any dollar-denominated, fully junk-rated issues.

The session’s sole pricing activity came out of Europe – a €500 million issue of 12-year secured paper from German cable operator Unitymedia Hessen GmbH & Co. KG.

Back on the domestic scene, Frisco, Texas-based oil and natural gas operator Comstock Resources, Inc. was heard to be hitting the road to market a $700 million five-year secured notes deal.

The syndicate sources meantime heard that San Francisco-based network applications provider Riverbed Technology Inc.’s eight-year notes deal already being shopped around to investors was downsized to $525 million, its second such size reduction since the offering was launched.

In the secondary realm, trading in recently priced issues such as PetSmart, Inc., Sprint Corp. and Wynn Las Vegas LLC continued to dominate the market.

Away from the newbies, energy names were seen to have caught a bid as oil prices rose, pushing names such as Energy XXI Gulf Coast Inc. and Halcon Resources Corp. higher.

But Chesapeake Energy Corp.’s paper was off after the big natural gas and liquids company’s quarterly earnings fell short of expectations.

Statistical indicators of junk market performance were higher across the board on Wednesday for a second consecutive session, and the third session in the last four.

© 2015 Prospect News.
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