Scotiabank adds on; Oracle bonds tighten; spreads mixed overall; busy May predicted

By Aleesia Forni

Virginia Beach, May 1 – A volatile week for the investment-grade market closed on a quiet note on Friday.

While Bank of Nova Scotia sold a $300 million add-on to its existing 1.85% covered bond due 2020 in the day’s only new-issue activity, spreads were mixed in the secondary market.

The add-on lifted the issue’s total size to $1.4 billion, including $1.1 billion of notes priced on April 7.

The Markit CDX North American Investment Grade series 23 index tightened 1 basis point to a spread of 62 bps.

Recent deals from Oracle Corp. and Amgen Inc. made up some earlier losses on Friday to close the week mostly tighter.

Oracle’s $10 billion of senior notes, which sold in six tranches on Tuesday, was trading tighter compared to levels seen earlier this week.

Amgen’s $3.5 billion of senior notes, which also sold on Tuesday in four tranches, traded mostly tighter to close the week.

This stronger performance is setting the stage for what is predicted to be a frenzied month of new issuance for May, with around $130 billion of supply predicted for the month.

Meanwhile, Lipper reported $1.528 billion of inflows into corporate investment-grade funds, bringing the year-to-date total to more than $27.6 billion of inflows.

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