How can a Principal of a Bond Increase?

A company I'm looking at issued senior unsecured notes with a principal face value of $500mm. The principal face value recorded on its filings is $500mm. However, Bloomberg shows the principal amount of this issuance to be $537.12mm. Outside of a PIK feature (which this note doesn't have), is there a technical reason why the face value of a bond would increase?

8 Comments
 

The coupon is fix. If the credit worthiness of the business increases (and thus the likelihood I'm getting my money back + interest), then I'd be willing to pay more for that stream of income. This is also how you can buy debt for "pennies on the dollar"

 
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Apart from PIK interest, as you mentioned, another common way to increase the principal amount would be via a tap issue. Following the original issuance, the issuer would simply issue additional notes under the same framework and thus increase the total principal amount of the notes. However, in this case I don't think that a tap issue is likely to be the case (at least on its own), given the relatively odd principal amount of notes that you have outstanding. You would typically do a tap issue in more even increments (such as $25mm, $100mm etc.), but it is technically possible to $37.12mm. 

Other possible explanations for the increase in principal amount:

  1. Tap issue + subsequent tender offer: Issuer might have issued e.g. $100mm in new notes (taking the total to $600mm) and at a later point decided to repurchase notes through a tender offer, where they bought back $62.88mm of the notes (leaving you with $537.12mm outstanding).
  2. Consent solicitation: Issuer asked investors to consent to certain proposed changes in the terms and conditions, (e.g. extend maturity, waive certain restrictions or waive a potential event of default etc.) and offered an increase in the principal amount as incentive/compensation for the investors to approve the amendments. Compensation here would correspond to ~7.4%, which is pretty high for a consent, but not unrealistic for a really tough ask. 

Without knowing the specific details of the notes its quite hard to pinpoint the real reason for the increase in principal. We can probably figure it out, if you can share the ISIN code (feel free to send a PM, if you are more comfortable with that).

Furthermore, when we talking about original issue discount (or in rare cases premium) it will not have any impact on the notes' principal amount. Instead, this relates to the price of the notes at issuance. If an issuer offers a 5% OID, investors will only pay 95% cash to purchase the notes in the new issue, but they will receive 100% (i.e. the principal amount) at maturity. It's the same concept that applies to the trading price when buying in the secondary market. E.g. if an investor buys at a cash price of 103% in the market, he will still receive the principal amount of 100% at maturity.

 

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