One day after Macy's Inc. regained its third investment-grade rating, investors are already betting on further upgrades for the retailer.
The second-largest U.S. department-store chain issued $800 million of bonds yesterday in its first offering since June 2008. Its $550 million sale of 10-year notes, rated Baa3 by Moody's Investors Service after a Jan. 9 upgrade and BBB- by Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings, yielded 200 basis points more than similar maturity Treasuries, within the average 226 basis-point spread on A-rated corporate bonds.
Macy's, based in Cincinnati, hadn't sold debt since April 2009, when it was downgraded to junk by Moody's and S&P. It paid a tighter spread on the 10-year debt than the higher-rated retailer Nordstrom Inc. had on a similar issue in October. Macy's cut its ratio of debt to earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization to 2.8 at the end of October from 3.5 times in February 2008, according to Moody's.
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