Search results for

American Tower's "B" paper began to tumble a little last week after hitting a high of 99 1/4 two weeks ago with a $10 million trade. Dealers said bid levels fell to 98 3/4, back to the bank debt's bid two weeks ago. Traders were not surprised by the fall back as tower credits are expected to lag behind a struggling wireless sector. "It's just following wireless. If wireless lags so will the infrastructure companies," said one trader. The company's debt was quoted at 99 in July as dealers stated that tower credits get lumped in with the rest of telecom (LMW, 7/1). In addition, to uncertainty regarding future business coming out of the wireless sector, Moody's Investors Service downgraded the debt and Standard & Poor's revised its outlook from stable to negative earlier in the month. Calls to Anne Alter, spokeswoman for American Tower, were not returned by press time.

Barclays Capital has hired Kevin Roach, a senior utilities analyst. He joins from Deutsche Banc Alex. Brown after working at that firm since May. The hiring of Roach, an Institutional Investor All-America Fixed-Income Research Team runner-up in 2000, follows the recent addition of Mark Pibl, a top-ranked energy analyst from Merrill Lynch, who was brought in to lead Barclays' U.S. investment grade research effort (BW, 7/16).

Queensland-based bank and insurance company Suncorp Metway will access the tier one and tier two subordinated bond markets in a bid to improve its adequacy ratios ahead of an acquisition. Suncorp will launch a A$200m-A$250m tier one issue structured as resettlement preference shares. The deal will be one of only a handful of its kind.

United Overseas Bank (UOB) has fulfilled market expectations by announcing plans to debut with a subordinated deal of an unprecedented maturity in the domestic market. The transaction will back its S$10bn ($5.73bn) cash and stock offer for Overseas Union Bank (OUB). JP Morgan and Merrill Lynch, together with UOB Asia itself, will joint lead manage a S$750m 15 year non-call 10 tier two sub debt issue, which has the potential to increase to S$1bn.

The jumbo IPO of China Telecommunications has been delayed as China's premier fixed line telco awaits a Beijing decision as to whether it will split the company into northern and southern China groups or by the type of telephone service the company offers. Bankers in Hong Kong said this week that the delay was almost inevitable, restructuring or not. Hong Kong's Hang Seng Index has lost more than 20% this year and telecoms stocks in Europe have fallen an average of more than 50% this year alone.

Japan The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) launched a ¥30bn 30 year callable binary power reverse dual Samurai bond this week, which was sole lead managed by Daiwa SMBC.

Australia Wheat marketer and financier AWB will become one of the top 200 Australian listed companies by market capitalisation when its shares begin trading on August 22. The company will have a market valuation at start of trading of A$860m.

AMP Henderson Airports Fund launched the prospectus on Wednesday for its planned IPO and more than A$500m fundraising. JP Morgan and JB Were are arranging the deal, which will be the first Australian listing of airport assets. AMP Henderson Airports Fund was founded and is controlled by Australian insurance and financial services company AMP. AMP wants to raise more than A$700m in two instalments.

The Bank of Queensland will today (Friday) price the latest domestic RMBS deal to come out of the buoyant Australian market - a A$280m securitisation backed by a portfolio of its residential mortgages. Lead managed by Macquarie Bank, Series 2001-2 REDS Trust will comprise three senior tranches rated triple-A by Fitch and Standard & Poor's (S&P) and a subordinated piece rated double-A. Macquarie Bank opted for the multi-tranche structure, despite the relatively small size of the deal.

Caisse Centrale Desjardins du Quebec announced its second note of the year yesterday. It was a ¥900 million ($7.39 million) trade that matures in September 2015 and has a final coupon of 2%. But the issuer is not accessing the MTN market as frequently as it used to. Despite using 16 different currencies since signing the programme in April 1992, its trading volumes have fallen from $1.06 billion in first half 1999, to $153.74 million in first half 2000, to $8.18 million in the same period in 2001. The other Canadian issuer announcing yen deals yesterday was Business Development Bank of Canada. It did two ¥1 billion 15-year notes that have final coupons of 3% and 4%. French issuers were again at the top of the yen league table. BNP Paribas, CDC IXIS Capital markets and Credit Lyonnais Finance are all staking claims for the most frequent yen borrowers this year, but Aventis also announced a trade yesterday. Its ¥10 billion note was its debut in the currency and matures in August 2002. Its final coupon is 1%. There was one other issuer in the chemicals, plastics and rubber industry. Fuji Photo Film Finance announced a ¥500 million trade that goes to August 2006. Salomon Smith Barney was the bookrunner. Mizuho also led a couple of deals. One for Svensk Exportkredit: a ¥100 million 30-year trade, and one for Export Finance and Insurance Corp: a ¥700 million note that goes out to December 2013.

India Arranger SBI International Merchant Banking Group has completed a $120m 2-1/2 year term loan for National Thermal Power Corp.

The State of Israel has officially mandated two groups of co-lead managers for separate dollar and euro benchmark transactions totalling around $1bn. Lehman Brothers and Salomon Smith Barney will handle the $500m deal, which is expected to be the first in the market before the end of the year.