GMAC ended its recent rally, as investors bet that speculation over its potential split from troubled auto maker General Motors was now sufficiently reflected in the price difference between the two credits.
Five-year credit default swaps on VNU rose as much as 40 basis points to 105 basis points, said a trader, before slipping back to 95 basis points. That means it costs 95,000 euros to insure 10 million euros of VNU debt against default.
"There was some pretty heavy selling this morning, and now people are waiting for more information," the trader said.
Bondholders are wary of private equity buyouts, which typically load a target company's balance sheet with debt. Debt in TDC, Rentokil, Compass and Hilton Group has been hit in recent weeks.
Citing people familiar with the matter, the Wall Street Journal said a consortium of private equity firms was considering a bid for VNU.
The FTSE Euro Corporate Bond Index showed investment-grade corporate bonds in euros yielding an average 37.9 basis points more than similarly dated government bonds, down 0.2 basis points at 1400 GMT.
The iTraxx Crossover index, used as a barometer of sentiment in the high-yield market, tightened about 4 basis points, to 301 basis points on a mid-price basis, a trader said.
Elsewhere, five-default swaps on GMAC, the financing arm of General Motors, were 10 basis points wider at 230 basis points. That compares to 765 basis points on GM, close to the widest level since the company revealed it was considering a split after GM's third-quarter results.
In telecoms, five-year credit default swaps on TeliaSonera were 1 basis point tighter by 1430 GMT, a trader in London said, after the Nordic telecoms operator reported forecast-beating third quarter earnings.
CDS were quoted at 30.5 basis points on a mid-price basis, the trader said.
France Telecom traded little changed, with five-year CDS at 42 basis points ahead of earnings reports due on Thursday. Alcatel CDS was unchanged at 86 basis points ahead of its results on the same day, a trader said.
"The telecoms sector is pretty unexciting at the moment", said Rick Deutsch, an analyst at BNP Paribas. "They are scratching around for revenue growth, and probably the biggest interest is when Alcatel will return to investment grade."
Meanwhile, French engineering group Alstom gained after it said late on Monday it would sell its industrial boilers activities to Austrian Energy & Environment as part of its state-backed bailout plan agreed with the European Union.
Five-year default swaps on Alstom fell 10 basis points to 200 basis points, a trader said.