Glencore Buys Back $400 Million of Bonds Following Market Rout
By Sally Bakewell - 04 nov 2015, 13:47:51
Glencore Plc said it has repurchased about $400 million of bonds since Sept. 30, after a market rout drove yields on some of its securities to junk levels.
The mining and trading company bought back debt maturing mainly in 2016 and 2017, it said today in a statement, without specifying which securities. The company also repaid three bonds amounting to $1.95 billion.
Yields on some Glencore bonds surged in late September and the stock plunged to a record low on investor concern that a commodity slump would impede its ability to curb $30 billion of debt. The Baar, Switzerland-based company today outlined a goal to trim borrowings to $25 billion by year-end.
“I would be reasonably comforted by this because it seems the company has enough liquidity,” said Chris Bowie, a London-based money manager at TwentyFour Asset Management, which oversees about 5 billion pounds ($7.7 billion), and doesn’t hold Glencore bonds. “They obviously believe these bonds are trading well beyond fair economic value if they wish to buy them back.”
The yield on Glencore’s 1.25 billion euros ($1.4 billion) of 1.5 percent bonds due in May 2016 was quoted as falling 1.4 percentage points to 3.59 percent on Wednesday. It rose to a record 15.6 percent on Sept. 29, Bloomberg data show.
That on the company’s 1.75 billion of 2.45 percent bonds due October 2017 was quoted at 13.6 percent on Sept. 29 before falling to 6.1 percent on Wednesday, the data show.
Investors demand an average yield of 7.7 percent to hold dollar-denominated sub-investment grade debt and 4.9 percent for similarly rated euro bonds, according to Bank of America Merrill Lynch indexes. Glencore is rated BBB, the second lowest investment grade, by Standard & Poor’s.
Gunvor Group Ltd., another commodity trader, in September completed the repurchase of its $500 million debut bonds.
Peter Grauer, the chairman of Bloomberg LP, the parent of Bloomberg News, is a senior independent non-executive director at Glencore.
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