Hewlett Packard, the world's second biggest computer company, has signed a $200 million Euro-CP and certificate of deposit programme. Deutsche Bank has won the mandate to be arranger. It is the first US borrower to join the Euro-CP market this year, and takes the number of new programmes in 2001 to 10. The small size of the programme means that the issuer has only appointed two dealers. They are Deutsche Bank and UBS Warburg. Hewlett Packard also has two US CP programmes and a $3 billion Euro-MTN programme in the market. Last week the company added Banc of America Securities, Bear Stearns and ABN Amro to the MTN dealer panel. This update and the new Euro-CP signing come at a time when Carly Fiorina, Hewlett Packard's president and chief executive officer, warned of a slowdown in consumer spending in Europe. She said the company had seen a slowdown in consumer IT spending in the US and added: "We're concerned that we're starting to see the same pattern in Europe." The issuer is rated P-1 by Moody's and A-1+ by Standard & Poor's. It is only the sixth private corporate that has signed in the last 12 months to be given the top rating by both credit agencies. Hewlett Packard International Bank, the UK-based subsidiary of the company, will issue the paper off the programme. It will allow the group access to a specific short-term investor type that was not available to it with its existing facilities. Only five other issuers from the computing and software industry have Euro-CP programmes. The last to sign was Honeywell. It signed a $500 million facility in January 1999 but has no notes outstanding. The 11 notes it issued when the programme was active were all in sterling. It is the only computing firm in the market to have used the currency.
May 25, 2001
