GE Arm Leads Corporate Sales --- Issuance Is Nearly $18 Billion; More Floating-Rate Notes
GE Capital, the lending arm of General Electric Co., sold a $6 billion four-part bond, leading a wave of investment-grade deals totaling nearly $18 billion from almost a dozen companies.</br></br>"The predicted flood of New Year new issue is arriving on schedule," said Jim Vogel, a financial analyst at FTN Financial Capital Markets in Memphis, Tenn. He said the calendar will include some catch-up deals from late November.</br></br>In addition to GE Capital, Enterprise Products Operating, Metropolitan Life Global Funding, Deutsche Bank AG, and Rabobank Nederland brought billion-dollar deals to market. Allegheny Technologies, ERAC USA Finance, Health Care Services, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and several others also lined up to sell debt on Tuesday.</br></br>The brisk pace of issuance wasn't limited to the U.S. BNP Paribas of France, ING Groep of the Netherlands and Banco Bilbao Vizcaya Argentaria of Spain all sold debt in Europe.</br></br>"We'll see a short burst followed by a little silence as earnings season begins followed by yet another round of reasonably heavy issuance," said Guy LeBas, chief fixed-income strategist at Janney Capital Markets.