By Ivar Simensen in London and Richard Beales in New York
Published: June 21 2006 03:00 | Last updated: June 21 2006 03:00
Royal Dutch Shell sold $1bn of five-year bonds yesterday, the Anglo-Dutch oil company’s first SEC-registered issue in the US market.
The bonds priced to yield 52 basis points over Treasuries, in line with guidance.
The scarcity of Shell paper helped the price below the prevailing Libor yield, among the tightest spreads in memory for a US corporate benchmark issue, according to a person close to the deal.
Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley lead-managed the sale.
US utility Dominion Resources sold $300m of hybrid securities yielding 240bp over Treasuries. Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch were joint bookrunners for the deal, rated low investment grade by Moody’s and just below investment grade by Standard & Poor’s.
In Europe, Swedish Match, the tobacco products maker, was hit by investor nerves as it was forced to sweeten terms and cut the size of its issue.
The company priced €300m of 2013 bonds to yield 60bp above mid-swap rates. It had targeted a €350m deal with a slightly lower yield spread.
“Even if the credit fundamentals looked quite good, we decided not to participate,” said one London-based investor.
He said the sell-off in subordinated financial debt had made industrial bonds look comparatively unattractive.
ABN Amro and SEB were the lead managers.
In the UK, BP added £50m to its December 2008 note to take the total amount to £500m. The bonds were priced to yield 30bp above Gilts with a 5.125 per cent coupon. HSBC managed the sale.
National Grid, the utility company, sold €600m of floating rate notes priced to yield 29bp more than three-month Euribor.
About 60 investors across Europe placed orders worth €900m for the bonds, according to one of the bookrunners.The sale was managed by Commerzbank, ING, RBS and SG CIB.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2006
This website and sisters royaldutchshellplc.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, and shellnews.net, are owned by John Donovan. There is also a Wikipedia segment.
Royal Dutch Shell conspired directly with Hitler, financed the Nazi Party, was anti-Semitic and sold out its own Dutch Jewish employees to the Nazis. Shell had a close relationship with the Nazis during and after the reign of Sir Henri Deterding, an ardent Nazi, and the founder and decades long leader of the Royal Dutch Shell Group. His burial ceremony, which had all the trappings of a state funeral, was held at his private estate in Mecklenburg, Germany. The spectacle (photographs below) included a funeral procession led by a horse drawn funeral hearse with senior Nazis officials and senior Royal Dutch Shell directors in attendance, Nazi salutes at the graveside, swastika banners on display and wreaths and personal tributes from Adolf Hitler and Reichsmarschall, Hermann Goring. Deterding was an honored associate and supporter of Hitler and a personal friend of Goring.
Deterding was the guest of Hitler during a four day summit meeting at Berchtesgaden. Sir Henri and Hitler both had ambitions on Russian oil fields. Only an honored personal guest would be rewarded with a private four day meeting at Hitler’s mountain top retreat.
IN JULY 2007, MR BILL CAMPBELL (ABOVE, A RETIRED GROUP AUDITOR OF SHELL INTERNATIONAL SENT AN EMAIL TO EVERY UK MP AND MEMBER OF THE HOUSE OF LORDS: 
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A head-cut image of Alfred Donovan (now deceased) appears courtesy of The Wall Street Journal.
