NBTY May Sell High-Yield Debt Amid Junk-Bond Fund Inflows: New Issue Alert
NBTY Inc., the maker of Nature’s Bounty and MET-Rx nutritional supplements, may sell notes as deposits in mutual funds investing in high-yield, high-risk debt climb.
NBTY may issue $900 million of bonds in addition to seeking a $1.5 billion term loan and a $200 million revolving line of credit to help pay for its acquisition by Carlyle Group, according to a person familiar with the transaction who declined to be identified because terms aren’t set.
Investors are putting their money in junk-bond mutual funds as yields on U.S. Treasuries fall amid signs that the economy may slip back into recession. Flows into the funds provided money managers with cash to buy new issues as sales this month of speculative-grade company bonds rose to the most on record for an August, said Manny Labrinos, who oversees $1.8 billion of the debt at Nuveen Investment Management.
“The big factor has been all the money that’s been flowing into the sector,” said Labrinos, who is based in Los Angeles. “We’ve been bullish for a while but we’ve still been surprised by the extent to which people have been willing to put money into credit.”
Flows into high-yield mutual funds rose to $602 million in the week ended Aug. 25 from $162 million during the previous seven days, according to EPFR Global, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based research firm that tracks the data. Investors have added to the funds for seven straight weeks, EPFR said in a statement.
Junk Spreads Widen
The extra yield investors demand to own high-yield corporate bonds declined 12 basis points to 681 basis points on Aug. 27, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. High Yield Master II Index. Spreads widened 1 basis point last week, the index data show.
High-yield, high-risk, or junk, bonds are rated below Baa3 by Moody’s Investors Service and BBB- by Standard & Poor’s. A basis point is 0.01 percentage point.
S&P cut its rating on NBTY by one step to B+ and assigned a rank of B to the company’s proposed senior unsecured notes or a bridge credit facility arranged in their place, according to an Aug. 26 statement. Moody’s said it was weighing whether to cut NBTY’s grade of Ba2 in a statement released on July 15.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke said Aug. 27 that the U.S. central bank “will do all that it can” to ensure a continuation of the economic recovery. Speaking at the Kansas City Fed’s annual economic symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, he said more securities purchases by the Fed may be warranted if growth slows.
Treasury Yields Rise
Yields on 10-year Treasuries, the market bellwether, climbed 17 basis points to 2.65 percent, the biggest gain since June 2009, after Bernanke’s comments. Yields were 2.9 percent on July 30.
Companies have sold $23.2 billion of high-yield debt this month, more than twice the $10.6 billion that borrowers issued last August, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. There were no sales of the debt last week for the first time this year.
Petroleos Mexicanos, the state oil company, sold $1 billion of debt due in 2035 and Aetna Inc., the third-largest U.S. health insurer after WellPoint Inc. and UnitedHealth Group Inc., issued $750 million of 10-year notes to lead $6.6 billion of investment-grade bond sales last week, Bloomberg data show.
Spreads on investment-grade debt were unchanged at 191 basis points on Aug. 27 and widened 3 basis points last week, according to the Bank of America Merrill Lynch U.S. Corporate Master Index.
Following is a description of at least $4.4 billion of pending sales of dollar-denominated bonds in the U.S.
Investment Grade
AON CORP., the world’s largest insurance brokerage, plans to sell as much as $1.5 billion of senior notes to help finance its acquisition of Hewitt Associates Inc., the Chicago-based company said in an Aug. 16 regulatory filing. Aon may also use proceeds to refinance Hewitt’s existing debt and to pay related expenses, it said in the filing.
DOHA BANK QSC, Qatar’s third-largest bank, may raise as much as $1 billion from bond sales, its chief executive officer said. The money is likely to be raised for five years and is meant to “fix the maturity mismatch” on the bank’s balance sheet, Raghavan Seetharaman said in a June 16 telephone interview from Doha. The bank will sell the bonds in dollars and the local riyal currency, the CEO said in a July 25 interview.
FORETHOUGHT FINANCIAL GROUP INC. plans to sell $150 million of 10-year bonds, according to a person familiar with the transaction, who declined to be identified because terms aren’t set. S&P assigned the notes a grade of BBB- in a March 24 report.
Not Rated
STERICYCLE INC. plans to issue $175 million of seven-year, 3.89 percent notes and $225 million of 10-year, 4.47 percent debt after receiving informal commitments from 22 institutional investors to buy the securities, it said in a statement distributed by Business Wire.
High Yield
NBTY INC., the maker of Nature’s Bounty and MET-Rx nutritional supplements, may issue $900 million of bonds in addition to seeking a $1.5 billion term loan and a $200 million revolving line of credit to help pay for its acquisition by Carlyle Group, according to a person familiar with the transaction who declined to be identified because terms aren’t set. S&P assigned the notes, or borrowings under a bridge credit facility in their place, a rank of B.
UNIVERSAL HEALTH SERVICES INC., the operator of more than 100 U.S. medical facilities that’s buying Psychiatric Solutions Inc., cut its offering of senior unsecured notes to $250 million, according to a person familiar with the transaction. It increased the size of the term loans it’s seeking by $100 million, said the person, who declined to be identified because terms aren’t set. The King of Prussia, Pennsylvania-based company previously planned to issue $400 million of senior unsecured debt to help finance the acquisition, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
E-LAND FASHION CHINA HOLDINGS LTD, the Hong Kong-based apparel products provider, hired Morgan Stanley to help it sell $200 million of three-year bonds, according to a person familiar with the matter. The company plans to begin meeting with investors in Asia, Europe and the U.S. on July 19, said the person who declined to be identified because terms aren’t set. Moody’s Investors Service ranked the proposed notes at Ba2, citing growing personal consumption in China, E-Land Fashion’s moderate scale and significant business volatility. Proceeds will be used for mainly for capital expenditures and general corporate purposes, Moody’s said in the report.
Offerings in Pipeline
AEGIS LTD., an outsourcing unit of Essar Group, may sell the first non-convertible dollar bonds from an Indian information technology company to fund expansion. The company, which bought PeopleSupport Inc. in 2008, may sell its bonds as part of a financing package that would include a loan of as much as $350 million to consolidate debt, Chief Financial Officer C.M. Sharma said.
AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL GROUP INC., the insurer that’s majority owned by the U.S., may sell bonds to help repay its government bailout, it said in an Aug. 9 registration statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
GATX CORP., a Chicago-based company that leases railroad cars and other equipment, filed a shelf registration with the Securities and Exchange Commission to sell debt securities and pass-through certificates. The debt securities may be senior or subordinated, according to the filing.
JSW STEEL LTD, India’s third-largest steelmaker, plans to sell dollar bonds for the first time in three years and as rupee-denominated finance costs rise. JSW has applied for credit ratings before a possible offshore bond sale to help build a 200 billion rupee ($4.3 billion) steel and power plant in West Bengal, Chief Financial Officer Seshagiri Rao said.
ARGENTINA may sell $1 billion of bonds due in 2017 by the end of August, El Cronista newspaper reported, without saying how it obtained the information. The government is also planning to offer an exchange for dollar bonds due in 2011 and 2012, the Buenos Aires-based publication said.
RURAL ELECTRIFICATION CORP., India’s state-owned lender to power projects, may sell as much as $300 million of bonds in U.S. dollars, Finance Director Hari Das Khunteta said in a telephone interview. Rural Electrification plans to raise $500 million from debt sales in the period, he had said on April 16.
THE PHILIPPINES hired eight banks to help arrange the sale of 10-year bonds, which may also include five- and seven-year issues, Treasurer Roberto Tan wrote in a mobile-phone message. The Philippines is also preparing to seek central bank approval for a planned sale of new dollar-denominated debt to exchange for older, shorter-dated notes, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said on August 2.
UKRAINE may sell bonds in the international capital markets, according to Dragon Capital, the former Soviet republic’s biggest brokerage. The government may sell $1.5 billion to $2 billion of 10-year, dollar-denominated debt with a yield of 7 percent to 7.5 percent after getting approval for a new International Monetary Fund loan and having its credit rating raised by Standard & Poor’s, said Olena Bilan, Dragon’s chief economist, at a press briefing in Kiev on July 30.
CZECH REPUBLIC plans to sell as much as $2 billion of dollar bonds to diversify from koruna and euro debt, Eduard Janota, former finance minister, said in an interview for Mlada Fronta Dnes newspaper.
POTASH CORPORATION OF SASKATCHEWAN INC., the world’s largest fertilizer company by capacity, filed a registration statement with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for $2 billion of debt securities.
INDONESIA plans to name three banks to help it sell approximately $650 million of Islamic bonds in October, Dahlan Siamat, director for Islamic financing at the finance ministry, said in a telephone interview in Jakarta. The government sold its first international Islamic dollar bonds in April 2009.
CORPORACION FINANCIERA DE DESAROLLO SA, Peru’s state development bank known as Cofide, plans to sell as much as $250 million of bonds, according to Chief Financial Officer Carlos Linares. Linares said in an interview in Lima, that the lender is selling long-term debt as it boosts lending to local infrastructure projects. “Peru’s need for infrastructure is huge,” Linares said. “The government is trying to promote foreign investment in a long list of projects.”
SRI LANKA hired HSBC, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and Royal Bank of Scotland to sell $1 billion of bonds, the Central Bank of Sri Lanka said on its website on Aug 12.
JORDAN plans to sell about $500 million of bonds, Finance Minister Mohammad Abu Hammour said in an interview on June 23. The sale will be denominated in U.S. dollars “as it’s a stable currency and the Jordanian dinar is pegged to it,” Abu Hammour said.
URUGUAY may sell as much as $1 billion of bonds in 2011, including $500 million of dollar-denominated debt, Carlos Steneri, director of public credit at Uruguay’s Ministry of Economy and Finance, said June 3 at a LatinFinance conference in London. The dollar-denominated bonds may have a maturity of 20 years or more, Steneri said.
MALAYSIA plans to raise about $1 billion from its first sale of conventional dollar bonds in eight years after drawing bids for five times the Islamic debt it offered, a finance ministry official said. The government may hire the same banks, including CIMB Group Holdings Bhd. and HSBC Holdings Plc, to arrange the sale by Sept. 30, said the official, who declined to be named as the discussions are private. Malaysia raised $1.25 billion from a Shariah-compliant dollar bond on May 27. Malaysia is rated A3 by Moody’s and A- by S&P.
SABIC CAPITAL, a unit of Saudi Basic Industries Corp., will sell bonds when market conditions and rates are favorable, its vice president for corporate finance Mutlaq al-Morished told al- Arabiya television in Dubai on June 16. Sabic delayed a bond sale because of unfavorable spreads, al-Morished said in a May 26 telephone interview. Sabic Capital had hired HSBC Holdings Plc, JPMorgan Chase & Co. and Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc to manage a benchmark-sized offering.
GHANA is considering selling its second dollar bond in 2011 to tap investor demand as the start-up of oil production boosts economic growth and narrows the budget deficit, Deputy Finance Minister Fifi Kwetey said. The government is considering a “no- deal roadshow” to gauge international investors’ appetite, Kwetey said in a May 26 interview in Abidjan. Ghana sold its first global bond in 2007, raising $750 million to help fund the construction of roads and power plants.
ANGOLA received credit ratings from Moody’s, S&P, and Fitch Ratings that put it on par with Nigeria, Lebanon and Belarus, and paved the way for a planned sale of international bonds. The southern African nation’s creditworthiness was rated at B+ by S&P and Fitch, four levels below investment grade. Moody’s assigned an equivalent ranking of B1.
EURASIAN NATURAL RESOURCES CORP., a London-based iron ore and alumina producer with operations in China and Russia, said it delayed its first dollar bond sale. The company is “postponing meetings with investors regarding a potential bond issuance under its Euro Medium Term Note program until further notice,” Charlotte Kirkham, a spokeswoman for ENRC, said in an e-mail. The company had hired Deutsche Bank AG and Morgan Stanley to manage the sale, according to a person familiar with the transaction.
BANK FOR INVESTMENT & DEVELOPMENT OF VIETNAM received approval from the central bank to issue 7 trillion dong ($369 million) of notes and another 3 trillion dong of dollar- denominated notes in 2010, according to a statement on State Bank of Vietnam’s Web site.
BOLIVIA plans its first international bond sale in more than 70 years as early as the end of 2011, Finance Minister Luis Arce said. He didn’t disclose the size of the offering.
POWER SECTOR ASSETS AND LIABILITIES MANAGEMENT CORP. of the Philippines may sell between $750 million and $1.5 billion of dollar-denominated bonds “anytime” to help refinance maturing debt, Vice Chairman Jose Ibazeta said. The company manages the finances of state utility National Power Corp.
BRISBANE AIRPORT CORP., owner of Australia’s third-busiest airport, may sell bonds in the U.S. as it pursues new markets to help refinance debt and pay for a new runway. The company is considering a 10- or 15-year U.S. private placement and a five- to seven-year Australian dollar bond sale in late 2010 or early 2011, Chief Financial Officer Tim Rothwell said in a phone interview from Brisbane.
VIETNAM NATIONAL COAL-MINERAL INDUSTRIES GROUP, the state- owned coal producer known as Vinacomin, plans to sell as much as $500 million of bonds overseas to fund mining and energy projects, according to Deputy Chief Executive Officer Nguyen Van Hai.
FINLAND may sell five-year bonds denominated in dollars, the Finnish Treasury said in a document posted on its Web site.
MONGOLIA plans to raise $500 million selling bonds in 2010 and the remainder of a planned $1.2 billion program will be sold according to market conditions, Batbayar Balgan, director general of the financial and economic policy department of Mongolia, said at a forum in Ulan Bator on June 16. The government scaled back its plans for global bond sales after Europe’s debt crisis drove up borrowing costs. Investment banks are advising Mongolia to issue debt with maturities of 5 years to 10 years, Bayartsogt said in a Feb. 9 interview. The securities may yield 8 percent to 11 percent, he said.
To contact the reporter on this story: Tim Catts in New York at tcatts1@bloomberg.net.
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