The North Sea oil operator
has breached a covenant of its retail bond and raised the coupon on its 2022
bond from 5.5% to 7.0%
From the perspective of the
DIY investor, there can be little quarrel that retail bonds have been a
success; a dearth of new notes issued on ORB and high demand from income seeking
investors have conspired to push prices in the secondary market way above par.
However, two issues
(Premier Oil – trading at £71 and EnQuest at £62) have been battered by the
collapse in the oil price, to the extent that one has now broken a covenant
negotiated to protect bondholders.
Bonds trading at such
levels are symptomatic of distressed businesses and because of the position of
such loans in the debt structure of the business, restructuring can often lead
to shareholders being swamped as debt is exchanged for equity.
As a result of its
announcement (view here) EnQuest will be raising the coupon on its ENQLN 5.5%
2022 bonds to 7%, in line with the covenant amendments negotiated with the
bondholders last April.
This is clearly good news
for holders of the bond, but it is uncertain what will happen next.
The notice states that the
coupon period from August 2016 to February 2016 will benefit from the new
higher coupon, because its leverage ratio as of 31st December was more than 3:1; however, this is not a permanent development.
If the company pulls back
inside the covenants (a credit-positive development), it is presumed that the
coupon will revert to its 5.5% original level, although it is unclear what will
happen next year if this is not the case.
EnQuest raised £145m with
its initial foray onto ORB and then ‘tapped’ the market for additional funding
at an effective coupon of 5.25% on the strength of a secondary market valuation
of £102.07 and a share price of 136.75p.
However, when things turned
ugly its retail bond hit a nadir at £28.95 and EnQuest’s share price tanked to
11p; the company may need to go back to noteholders again.
Pretty bleak, but things have looked decidedly rosier since
January 2016 and in addition to the improvement in its bond price, the company
is today trading at 33p and the bigger picture is that Brent Crude has now
nudged over $50 a barrel, with some analysts predicting it will break though
$70 before the end of the year.
So, despite some uncertainty over the precise nature of the
bone they have been thrown, holders of EnQuest retail bonds should be
reasonably content to receive an enhanced coupon and barring an unforeseen
catastrophic failure of the issuer or change in their personal circumstances, should
be able to ride out their investment until 2022.
So, the $64k question – is this the time to pile into
EnQuest to take advantage of an enhanced coupon for however long it is applied,
safe in the knowledge that the bonds will be redeemed at par in 2022, or is
this the point at which the DIY investor does a passable impression of Edvard
Munch’s Scream and vows to steer well clear of those pesky energy stocks that
have made such a dent in their portfolio?
A case could be argued either way, but only you will know if
such an investment would keep you up at night and it is worth mentioning at
this point that retail bonds are not covered by the Financial Services Compensation
Scheme.