Financial services giant State Street Corp. led a number of major companies planning to raise large sums from new bond offerings. It is trotting out a $2.45-billion, two-part debt sale guaranteed by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
The offering by State Street includes two-year fixed-rate notes and a 2.5-year floating-rate note, according to Reuters. Earlier this month, State Street sold $1.5 billion in notes guaranteed under the FDIC’s Temporary Liquidity Guarantee Program.
Also this week, Ford Motor’s finance unit plans to sell $2.95 billion in bonds backed by auto loans under the Federal Reserve’s Term Asset-Backed Securities Loan Facility, according to Bloomberg News.
In a two-part euro benchmark bond offering, Philip Morris plans to raise $2.6 billion, including through three-year and seven-year bonds, the wire service noted. That makes it one of a number of euro issues lately. On Tuesday alone, German airline Deutsche Lufthansa AG, auto maker Daimler AG, power company E.ON AG, and Spain’s Telefónica SA all launched bond deals, according to the reports.
Nearly 10 billion euros worth of deals are coming to market this week alone. And European companies so far this year have sold issues worth nearly 100 billion euros ($129.6 billion), compared with 105 billion euros for all of 2008.
Meanwhile, at least four additional companies are planning to issue new paper. Austrian steelmaker Voestalpine plans a four-year euro-denominated bond, while Italian bank UniCredit SpA is seeking up to 4 billion euros from Austria, Italy, and other investors. BNP Paribas plans a three-year senior unsecured euro benchmark bond, while Dutch chemicals company Akzo Nobel plans a six-year euro benchmark bond, according to Reuters.
The biggest bond deal of the week has come from Pfizer Inc., which raised $13.5 billion in a four-part deal designed for helping fund the purchase of Wyeth and refinancing existing debt, along with general corporate purposes. Pfizer also may temporarily invest funds that are not immediately needed for these purposes in short-term marketable securities, it added in a regulatory filing.