Charter Communications bank debt has recovered from a brief dip in levels that occurred following the company's decision to cancel a tender offer for its senior notes and senior discount notes. By midweek, the company's term loan "B" was trading in the 931/2 94 range up from the 911/2 931/2 range. Charter bonds were also about two to three points higher, noted one trader.
The company was pursuing a $1.7 billion proposed note sale to back the tender offer. But the increase in yield for the benchmark 10-year treasury and mutual fund outflows made the transaction economically unattractive for the company, said Carl Vogel, Charter's president, ceo and director, in a written statement. He noted that the company would revisit the transaction when market conditions improve.
While $500 million of the new financing had been earmarked to pay down one or more of Charter's credit facilities, traders had said the effect of any pay down of the trading levels for the bank debt would be minimal due to the large amount of debt the company has outstanding across a number of different facilities. Charter has about $7.8 billion in bank debt under its Charter Operating, CC VI, Falcon Cable and CC VII Operating entities, according to company filings. Calls to a Charter spokesman were not returned by press time.