Europe takes primary spotlight; Windstream gains on exchange offer; funds lose $450 million

By Paul Deckelman and Paul A. Harris

New York, Oct 19 – For the first time in more than a month, the dollar-denominated junk bond primary market fell silent on Thursday, with no new deals heard by syndicate sources to have priced.

As had been the case on Wednesday, the European segment of the high-yield world took center stage, as Italian construction and infrastructure company Salini Impregilo SpA priced an upsized €500 million of seven-year notes.

Another Italy-based issuer – telecommunications operator Wind Tre SpA – was meantime shopping its huge €7.3 billion equivalent five-tranche senior secured deal around, with pricing seen possible in the upcoming week. That deal, when it comes, will generate some interest in the dollar market since two of the five tranches will be denominated in greenbacks, with the rest in euros.

A domestic telecom name, Windstream Holdings Inc., was generating the big news in the U.S. junk market as it announced an exchange offer for several series of its notes. That pushed that paper higher, along with the notes from former Windstream subsidiary Uniti Group Inc.

Statistical market performance measures were higher across the board for a third consecutive session on Thursday.

But another numerical indicator – flows of investor cash into or out of high yield mutual funds and exchange-traded funds – turned negative this week after four consecutive weekly gains, as $450 million left those weekly-reporting-only domestic funds.

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