Cargill, the largest privately owned corporate in the U.S., is weighing up converting a recent USD250 million fixed-rate bond into a synthetic floater. Jay Olsom, assistant treasurer in Wayzata, Minn., said the swap is under consideration in order to maintain the corporate's fixed to floating ratio of around 50%.
Swap spreads widened in the days following the bond sale, which makes the conversion less attractive, he noted. Cargill, however, will continue to monitor the market and may yet go ahead with a swap. He said the corporate is not waiting on any specific swap spread to trigger the deal.
The counterparty for any swap would be selected from Cargill's group of relationship banks, which includes Citigroup Global Markets, JPMorgan, Banc of America Securities and Deutsche Bank. Price and degree of collateral that the counterparty requests be posted against the swap would be influencing factors on the decision, Olsom said. Citigroup lead managed the bond sale.