(Bloomberg) -- BHP Billiton Finance USA Ltd. and Philip Morris International Inc. led a slate of at least 20 companies tapping the US investment-grade market, making Tuesday the busiest day of 2023 by both deal and volume count.
Tuesday saw more than $36 billion of new sales, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It was the biggest wave of issuance since May 16, when the market saw about $33 billion of fresh debt in a day, and January 3, which saw just over $34 billion. Tuesday also set the single-day record for the number of deals in 2023.
BHP is selling $4.75 billion of senior unsecured notes in five parts, according to a person familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified as the details are private. The longest dated portion of the offering — a 30-year note — will yield in the area of 1.25 percentage points over Treasuries after initial pricing discussions of 1.5 percentage points. Proceeds from the sale will be used to repay outstanding debt associated with the company's acquisition of OZ Minerals Ltd., according to a filing.
Philip Morris sold $2.35 billion of senior unsecured notes in three parts, according to a person familiar. The longest dated portion of the offering — a 10-year fixed-rate note — yielded 1.6 percentage points over Treasuries after initial pricing discussions of 1.8 percentage points. Proceeds from the sale will be used to repay outstanding commercial paper and meet working capital requirements.
The deluge of fresh bond sales comes after a slowdown during the past two weeks leading up to the Labor Day holiday in the US. Borrowers are looking to cover their funding needs in a relatively attractive environment ahead of the Federal Reserve meeting later this month.
The week following Labor Day is typically one of the busiest of the year. Issuers sold $77 billion and $51 billion in the four days following Labor Day in 2021 and 2022, respectively, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Wall Street investment-grade syndicate desks are projecting about $120 billion of fresh debt for the month of September.
JBS USA Food Co., Unilever Capital Corp., Duke Energy Corp., Metropolitan Life Global Funding, Swedbank AB, MidAmerican Energy Co., John Deere Capital Corp., Volkswagen Group of America Finance LLC and WEC Energy Group Inc. were also selling new debt on Tuesday.
Metropolitan Life, MidAmerican and Volkswagen declined to comment, while the other issuers did not respond to requests for comment.
(Updates with deal launch and pricing details. A previous version of this story corrected the amount of projected high-grade issuance.)
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