Cemex rose the most in more than two months after Fitch Ratings said the company plans to sell US$500m of dollar-denominated bonds to pay bank debt.

Cemex’s American depositary receipts rose 64 cents, or 11 per cent, to $6.28 at 4:15 p.m. in New York Stock Exchange composite trading, the biggest one-day jump since December 16. Jorge Perez, a spokesman for Monterrey, Mexico-based Cemex, confirmed the planned bond sale and amount.

Cemex said Jan. 29 it still has about $2.9bn of debt maturing this year after it reached an agreement with banks to refinance $4bn of borrowings that were scheduled to come due in 2009. The company said it planned to seek more refinancing, sell as much as $1.9bn of assets and use cash profits to retire debt.

Fitch in a statement gave a BB rating, or two levels below investment grade, to the proposed notes, which will be issued by Cemex and guaranteed by New Sunward and Cemex Mexico SA.

The bond sale will have an “intermediate” maturity and have high-yield covenants, according to Standard & Poor’s Leveraged Commentary & Data. S&P said in a statement it rated the planned bond sale BB+, which is one level below investment grade.

Source: Bloomberg News

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