Deals of the year: North America

Western Europe     Asia        Central & Eastern Europe           Latin America

US
Best corporate bond
Winner:

Kellogg

Date: March 23 2001

Amount: $4.6 billion

Underwriters: Citigroup (global coordinator); JPMorgan (Joint books)

Everybody knows Kellogg. The Kellogg’s brand’s dominance of the breakfast cereal market makes it one of the best known in the US. And that made for more enjoyable roadshow meetings for the firm’s multi-tranche debt deal than might have been the case for firms with less snap, crackle and pop. “Meetings would start with investors saying things such as ‘I remember being a kid and eating frosted flakes…’ rather than jumping straight into cashflow analysis,” says Maurice Lopez, director in debt capital markets for Citigroup, global coordinator for the deal.

But Kellogg also had its problems.