Micron, Calpine lead primary; Altice tweaks deal; new Heinz busy; funds jump $2.77 billion

By Paul Deckelman

New York, Jan. 29 – After several sessions of not much activity, the high-yield primary market sprang back to life on Thursday with a trio of opportunistic drive-by pricings, one of them in megadeal territory.

And the much-anticipated, giant-sized multi-tranche offering from Altice International moved closer to completion. The deal is expected to price on Friday, with price talk out – considerably tighter than initial estimates – and some tweaking of the tranche sizes.

Micron Technology, Inc. priced an upsized $1 billion of 8.5-year senior notes, which were seen having firmed in initial aftermarket dealings.

Calpine Corp. came to market with an upsized $650 million of nine-year paper, which was also somewhat firmer in preliminary trading.

Platform Specialty Products Corp. – which visited Junkbondland just last week with a big dollar- and euro-denominated two-part bond offering – came back for seconds on Thursday, pricing a smallish add-on to the dollar tranche. Those bonds, too, were seen at higher levels later in the session.

And for a third consecutive session, H.J. Heinz Co.’s new issue of 10-year notes was easily the most actively traded junk bond of the day.

Traders saw a mostly better market, and statistical performance indicators were higher across the board.

Meanwhile, high-yield mutual funds and exchange-traded funds posted a net inflow of $2.77 billion for the week ended Wednesday, one of the biggest increases on record.

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