Scotts ends pricing drought; SunOpta scrubbed; bonds up broadly; Chemours off on verdict

By Paul Deckelman and Paul A. Harris

New York, Oct. 7 – The high-yield market saw another day of strong gains on Wednesday, its third in a row on that score.

And the primary arena came back to life as Scotts Miracle-Gro Co. came to market with an upsized $400 million offering of eight-year notes. That drive-by transaction was the first such pricing seen in Junkbondland since Sept. 25.

Another would-be issuer remained wary. Syndicate sources said late in the day that SunOpta Foods Inc. had pulled its $330 million offering of seven-year secured notes, which had been expected to price on Wednesday.

But that negative note was of not much interest to most junk market participants on Wednesday, as traders saw a broad range of bonds riding the solid momentum generated over the past two sessions and mostly moving higher.

These included recently priced offerings such as Altice NV, Cablevision Systems Corp. and Frontier Communications Corp. as well as established telecommunications credits like Sprint Corp. and energy names such as California Resources Corp.

One notable exception to the day’s bond bonanza was Chemours Co. Bonds of that chemical company retreated in active trading on the news that a federal jury ruled against the company in a suit brought by a woman who claimed that its dumping of a toxic chemical into the Ohio river had given her kidney cancer, the first of what is expected to be over 3,000 such lawsuits.

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