Intanto gli emittenti HY USA di maggiore qualità approfittano di questo momento di relativa quiete sul mercato dei capitali per carcare di approvvigionarsi di capitali o di rifinanziarsi ad interessi un po' più contenuti di quelli corrisposti solo poche settimane fa.
Ad esempio El Paso, il solo emittente HY USA a collocare bond sul mercato a dicembre, è tornato con una nuova emissione da 500 mln $ pagando un rendimento a scadenza di poco superiore al 10%, contro più del 15% che aveva dovuto pagare due mesi fa.
In ogni caso, le emissioni HY di gennaio 2009 sono risultate inferiori del 40% a quelle di 1 anno prima e gli emittenti di qualità modesta restano esclusi dal mercato.
I deals si concentrano nei comparti più difensivi e sugli emittenti a maggiore consistenza patrimoniale, idonei nel worst case scenario a garantire aspettative di recovery più elevate.
Il deal di maggiori dimensioni in gennaio, con emissioni per 1 mld $, è quello messo a segno da Chesapeake Energy, un importante player del comparto USA dell'oil & gas.
E tuttavia, come correttamente notato in questo commento dell'AP, sarà il default rate a dettare il futuro andamento del mercato HY. E con un default rate attorno al 4%, ma atteso almeno al 12% entro fine anno, è ben probabile (e questa è anche la mia opinione) che basti poco a riportare il mercato obbligazionario ad una chiusura pressoché completa nei confronti degli emittenti HY.
Investors starting to snap up to riskier bonds
By STEPHEN BERNARD – 20 hours ago
NEW YORK (AP) — It might take discounted prices and near double-digit interest rates, but companies are finding buyers for their junk bonds.
For the first time in months, companies with poor credit ratings are going into the debt markets and getting a warm reception. Junk bond issuers in the U.S. raised $4.3 billion in January, according to Dealogic, a financial research firm. That was the largest total monthly issuance since June, and the eight deals in January were more than the previous four months combined.
This week, natural gas producer El Paso Corp. priced a $500 million offering at a discount of 95.54 cents on the dollar with an interest rate of 8.25 percent and a yield of 9.125 percent. In the final months of 2008, El Paso was about the only junk bond issuer to find buyers, and it had to offer a yield of 15.25 percent to get a deal done.
The pickup in activity is heartening after the market for junk bonds — also known as high-yield, speculative- or non-investment grade bonds — came to a standstill during the credit crisis last fall. Still, analysts caution it is far from strong.
"By historic terms, (volume) remains rather anemic," said Diane Vazza, head of global fixed income research for Standard & Poor's.
Issuance was still 40 percent short of January 2008's total, and the companies selling the bonds were able to find buyers because they are on firm financial footing.
"Most of the companies able to issue successfully are asset rich, well known to investors and generally stronger credit quality," said Eric Tutterow, managing director of leveraged finance at Fitch Ratings.
Companies with the worst ratings that need to raise debt to stay in business are not in the market right now, Tutterow said.
Investment appetite is also concentrated in just a few industries, mainly energy and telecommunications. They accounted for all but one of the eight high-yield deals in January.
The largest deal last month was completed by Chesapeake Energy Corp. The natural gas producer raised $1 billion on Jan. 28. The smallest deal was for $225 million, and completed by Inergy Holdings LP, also an oil and gas firm.
Chris Garman, president of Garman Research, said it is no surprise those industries would see increased activity as the market starts to return.
"Typically when the door reopens after a fairly awful (period), it tends to be a higher quality issue with greater recoverable assets," Garman said. "Energy and telecom would certainly fit that bill."
Companies in other industries have had a harder time. Landry's Restaurants Inc., a restaurant chain operator, said Thursday it priced an offering of $295.5 million in bonds at a rate of 14 percent and a discount of 88 cents on the dollar, for a yield of just over 20 percent. Landry's had worked since the middle of January to issue the bonds.
Tutterow said the higher price shows that investors are more nervous about some industries and companies with lower credit ratings. Landry's is rated "B" by Standard & Poor's, compared to El Paso, which is three notches higher at "BB."
"Let's face it, family-style restaurants right now are having a difficult time in this recession, and are a more risky proposition than, say, a company that has oil reserves," Tutterow said.
Garman noted that as the market opens up further, investors will likely migrate down the credit scale and buy debt from lower-rated companies.
"There does seem to be some willingness to take risk on corporate bond issues," Garman said.
The Federal Reserve's interest rate policy, which has sent the benchmark federal funds rate to almost zero percent, is also likely to boost demand for junk bonds because of the higher yields on speculative-grade debt, Garman said. He added that there is about a one-year lag time from when the Fed slashes rates before improvement is seen in the high-yield sector.
A company with credit ratings below "BBB-" from Fitch and Standard & Poor's or below "Baa3" from Moody's Investors Service is considered to have speculative-grade credit. As such, the cost of raising new capital is much higher than for investment-grade issuers. It is also more difficult for corporations with speculative-grade ratings to complete deals — especially in the midst of the ongoing credit crisis — because the likelihood of default is much higher.
Analysts say that with the Fed having slashed rates as low as they can go, default rates on high-yield bonds will be the key to a sustained improvement in the market. If defaults rise more than expected or remain elevated for a long period of time, it might start to push investors away from the high-yield market again, Garman said.
Like El Paso, issuers are having to sweeten their deals in a recessionary market, including selling the bonds at a discount. That effectively drives up yields as issuers have to repay the interest and the difference between the sale price and face value of the bonds.
For example, while the face value of a bond might be $100, a company might have to sell it for $96 to find an investor, but the bond is still issued at a value of $100. As the bond is repaid, investors receive yearly interest based on a $100 value, and will also receive the extra $4 of face value that it did not have to pay upfront.
Garman did say interest rates on the bonds are lower than in past recessions, but the discounted initial sale price makes the yield higher than during previous cycles.
Credit spreads — which measure the difference in yield between corporate bonds and risk-free Treasury bonds of similar maturities — for high-yield bonds still remain extremely high, Vazza said, although they have shrunk slightly from a month ago.
The current spread between the yield on the speculative-grade bonds and Treasury bonds, which are considered the safest form of investment, is about 14.24 percentage points. Spreads were at 16.12 percentage points between high-yield bonds and Treasurys in early January, but are still far from the 5.76 percentage point spread seen a year ago, Vazza said.
Vazza said spreads will remain elevated. That means it will remain expensive for companies with poor ratings to issue new bonds.
