Search results for

The Deal Roll-off Chart, provided by Capital DATA Loanware, lists the 50 largest leveraged credit facilities in the U.S. market that are due to mature in the coming month. It is designed to provide a look at potentially available money in the market as credits are renewed or retired.

This chart, provided by Citibank/Salomon Smith Barney Inc., tracks bid-ask prices for par credit facilities that trade in the secondary market. It also tracks facility amounts, ratings, pricing and maturities.

Debbie Cervantes, portfolio manager at Patterson & Associates, says her firm will add agency notes and Treasuries to its portfolio, using $85 million in cash or 10% of the total fund to finance the purchases. The move will be made as soon as the stock market and the economy recover. Two likely indications that the economy is recovering, she says, would be a stabilization of the unemployment rate and some market anticipation that the Federal Reserve will shift to a tightening bias. She declined to predict when she sees the market evolving in that direction. She says that the firm has kept the overall portfolio duration short, at six months. Because, with rates at an all-time low, there is more yield pickup on the shorter-end of the curve and no real incentive to give up liquidity. As an example, six-month commercial paper, which last Monday yielded 1.80%, offers 25 basis points additional spread over Treasuries than comparable agency notes. This is due partly to the fact that the yield curve is inverted, which diminishes the incentive of extending duration, she notes. She reasons that once the Fed tightens, the yield curve will take a positive slope, making the purchase of one- to two-year agency notes and Treasuries more affordable.

Market players are eyeingHuntsman Corp.'s recently amended and restated bank loan, waiting to see if an assigned rating will unleash trading in the new credit or if heavy leverage will hold it back. The $1.6 billion credit comes in conjunction with a larger restructuring plan, and some traders said they expect the debt's value, previously in the low 80s, to jump once the new deal is rated. "Par loan guys would look at the deal if it had a rating," said one dealer. But the credit has traded in the 85 range since the restructuring, and it may be hampered by its highly leveraged position and a current tough market for chemical names, one trader said.

IntesaBCI is structuring a jumbo residential mortgage-backed securitization, which it plans to launch within the next 30 days. The deal is rumoured to be E3-4 billion in size, and the Milan-based bank has not yet selected underwriters for the deal, according to a member of the bank's structuring team. The deal, if even over E2 billion, will be Italy's largest RMBS deal to date.

Morgan Stanley has hired Brian Jacoby as an executive director and investment-grade manufacturing analyst reporting to Ryan Marshall, global head of fixed-income credit research, according to a person with knowledge of the situation. Jacoby joins from J. P. Morgan Securities, where he was the top-ranking manufacturing analyst on the Institutional Investor All-America Fixed-Income Research Team in 2001 and 2002. He could not be reached. Marshall declined to comment. Margaret Cannella, high-grade research head at J. P. Morgan, declined comment.

UBS Warburg has flexed pricing on a $145 million credit facility backing the $300 million acquisition of Nellson Nutraceutical by Fremont Partners and existing management.

A pair of sell-side analysts say the bonds of Electronic Data Services are well oversold in the wake of a drastic reduction in earnings guidance last month. "EDS is about the cheapest single-A we've got in the corporate bond market," says Mark Altherr at Credit Suisse First Boston. He says it is difficult for EDS' clients to look elsewhere for a company that provides similar services. While Altherr sees the prospect of a one or two notch downgrade, he says the bond market is treating the credit like a low triple-B. The 7.125% notes of '09 (A1/A+) were bid at 92 last Monday and have widened 350 basis points since it lowered earnings guidance on September 18. Altherr says the bonds will retrace at least 260 basis points over the next six months. "The bond market is saying this is an EDS problem that will get worse. We think it is a market problem with some EDS component to it, not a severe credit event."

Standard Chartered Bank is developing an asset-backed securitization business in London and Hong Kong through which it aims to execute deals in Asia and emerging Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA). Noel Edison, head of asset securitization for EMEA and South Asia, says the ABS push is part of the bank's overall strategy to build out its fixed-income platform. Edison says the bank has traditionally been very active in consumer and commercial banking in emerging markets and now these markets have matured to a point where securitization is viable.

TD Securities has made wholesale changes to its U.S. high-yield business--merging its bond and bank loan units. Additionally, Derrick Herndon has been reassigned from his position as head of debt distribution to a new role managing the firm's $13 billion credit portfolio. Herndon will work with an investment team of what he estimates will grow, through internal moves and some 10 new hires, to 25 people, who will work with another 60 professionals in Canada, Europe and Asia. The portfolio will now be actively managed, where it had been passively held.

Veridian has expanded its $200 million credit facility to $360 million in order to back the company's $227 million acquisition of Signal, an information technology and engineering services provider to the Department of Defense and other U.S. government agencies. Veridian decided to add on to the current facility rather than take out a new loan because of the facility's recent June 2002 closing, saidMaureen Crystal, director of investor relations. "Why would you go through all that work again?" she asked, adding that the add-on was an easier and quicker way to increase Veridian's funds.