Blackstone offers first rental-home securities of 2015

New York

BLACKSTONE Group LP is offering the first securities of 2015 tied to rental homes, the start of what Morgan Stanley analysts predict may be a more than doubling of issuance this year in the nascent market for such debt.

Blackstone's Invitation Homes is planning a US$513.8 million deal backed by 3,072 properties, a person with knowledge of the matter said. A total of US$227.8 million of top-rated securities may be sold at yields that float about 1.35 percentage points above a borrowing benchmark, said the source, who asked not to named without authorisation to speak publicly. That compares with the 1.3 percentage point spread to the one-month London Interbank Offered Rate (Libor) at which it sold similar bonds in its last offering in November.