Secondary Offerings Coming on Strong and Endless (BBEP, COF, EEP, HLS, HLSS, MERU, NEE, WCRX, Z)

When the market is strong, companies tend to raise capital. Or insiders decide to cash in some chips. We now have a whole slew of companies conducting secondary offerings now: BreitBurn Energy Partners L.P. (NASDAQ: BBEP), Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF), Enbridge Energy Partners L.P. (NYSE: EEP), HealthoSuth Corp. (NYSE: HLS), Home Loan Servicing Solutions Ltd. (NASDAQ: HLSS), Meru Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: MERU), NextEra Energy Inc. (NYSE: NEE), Warner Chilcott PLC (NASDAQ: WCRX) and Zillow Inc. (NASDAQ: Z). A brief synopsis and some general color has been included on each deal.

BreitBurn Energy Partners L.P. (NASDAQ: BBEP) is selling 10 million shares (actually units) at $18.51 per unit for net proceeds of about $177.6 million versus a market cap of about $1.3 billion before the effects of this offering. Shares (units) are down over 4% at $18.42 so far on the deal.

Capital One Financial Corp. (NYSE: COF) held up incredibly well on Wednesday despite news that ING Groep N.V. (NYSE: ING) was selling its nearly $3 billion stake.

Enbridge Energy Partners L.P. (NYSE: EEP) has filed to sell 14 million units to raise some $400 million, versus a predrop market cap of about $8.5 billion. Its units are indicated down 4.6% at $28.35 so far this morning.

HealthSouth Corp. (NYSE: HLS) filed its automatic shelf registration statement, which would allow the company to sell any combination of common stock, preferred stock, warrants and debt securities. No disclosure on the amount was made.

Home Loan Servicing Solutions Ltd. (NASDAQ: HLSS) is down almost 3% at $14.88 after disclosing a follow-on secondary offering of 11.5 million ordinary shares. The company said, “HLSS intends to use the net proceeds of the offering to purchase the right to receive servicing and other related fees, associated servicing advances and other related assets from Ocwen Loan Servicing, LLC.”

Meru Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: MERU) filed a universal shelf registration statement to periodically sell up to $15 million of its securities, which may consist of common stock, preferred stock, debt securities, warrants, subscription rights or units consisting of any of the foregoing over the next three years. Shares ticked lower as the market cap is only just under $54 million.

NextEra Energy Inc. (NYSE: NEE), the former FPL, is planning to sell some $650 million equity units as follows: “Each equity unit will be issued in a stated amount of $50. Each equity unit will consist of a contract to purchase NextEra Energy common stock in the future, and a 5 percent undivided beneficial ownership interest in a NextEra Energy Capital Holdings, Inc. debenture due Sept. 1, 2017, to be issued in the principal amount of $1,000.” The net proceeds will be added to the general funds of NextEra Energy Capital Holdings and the company’s current market cap is $28.4 billion.

Warner Chilcott PLC (NASDAQ: WCRX) is selling almost 42.9 million ordinary shares for insiders and private equity backers. This will come to about 14% of the outstanding shares and the deal is coming very close to its lows of the last year. The sale will likely be more than $550 million worth of shares, and the market cap before the drop was $3.55 billion. Shares are down 9% at $12.90, and that is matching its 52-week low.

Zillow Inc. (NASDAQ: Z) has disclosed that it plans to sell almost 3.2 million shares of its common stock to raise capital. This is close to its all-time high, but shares are indicated down close to 2% after a $42.43 close.

JON C. OGG