ROANOKE TIMES 

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 9, 1990                   TAG: 9006090101
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

DU PONT OFFERS ZERO-COUPON NOTES

E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co. is offering $1.85 billion in zero-coupon convertible discount notes with final maturity of June 14, 2010, through the First Boston Corp. as sole manager.

The size of the issue was originally to have been about $1.3 billion.

Proceeds from the offering are expected to total $404.3 million, and will be used to pay short-term debt incurred by an extensive share repurchase program.

Underwriters said the notes, which pay no interest, are priced at $215.55 for every $1,000 of notes to yield 7.75 percent if held to maturity.

They also feature a "put" option that allows note holders to sell the notes back to the company after five years, 10 years or 15 years for cash, common stock or subordinated repayment notes.

The notes are convertible into common stock at a price of $47.375 a share - the highest conversion premium ever for a zero-coupon convertible.

Moody's Investors Service gave the issue a rating of A-3, and the Standard & Poor's Corp. gave it AA-minus.

- New York Times 


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