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Anglian Water lets the tap flow as Euro ABS market heats up

Anglian Water Services was back tapping the market with a GBP150 million ($287 million) reopening of its 2002 whole business securitization, the third offering to come from the GBP1.76 billion total program and follows the GBP250 million January deal.

The latest tap issue comes under the 10 billion ($13.2 billion) global secured MTN program. According to Fitch Ratings the capital structure is highly levered, up to 75% net debt-to-asset value at the double-A rated level as well as the triple-A wrapped class and up to 85% at the triple-B level. In March 2004, leverage was set at 71% and 81.5% respectively.

The offering was assigned a triple-B ratings equivalent by Fitch, Moody's Investor Services and Standard & Poor's, The deal priced at 99.527 and pays a coupon of 5.5% The new debt will pre-fund the future capital expenditure needs of the company and refinance some of the triple-B notes issued by the companies, said one market source

Analysts at Fitch said Anglian Water would not need an equity injection to fund this period's capital expenditure to remain within the MTN program's maximum gearing parameters. "At the moment Gilts are good, which would probably explain why the issuer has come to market so soon," said one market source. "There is a certain amount of capital expenditure that these companies must do over the next few years and, at the moment, other water companies also face a lot of work to do, they may be thinking that its better to get it done now."

Another entirely different drinking source garnered keen investor interest as well. Bids flowed in for the U.K. pub deal issued by Unique Pub Properties - part of Britain's biggest pubs group Enterprise Inns - via lead managers Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, Goldman Sachs and HSBC. The GBP563.4 million Unique Pub Finance saw its 4.4-year, six year, and 16.9-year notes oversubscribed and priced after a short marketing period. The triple-A rated A2N notes priced at 16 basis points over three-month Libor and the single-A rated A1N notes priced at 38 basis points over Libor.

New in the pipeline was the 188.1 million Stiching Memphis 2005-1 synthetic Dutch RMBS, the second synthetic issue for originator Postbank N.V. This deal includes a regulatory call option for the Class A and B notes under Basel II (see story p. 17). Spanish originator Caja de Ahorros del Mediterraneo also had a 2 billion RMBS marketing via Calyon Securities, JP Morgan Securities and SG Corporate & Investment Banking.

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