Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors. Transcription: Keeley Webster (00:03):Hi, and welcome to another edition of The Bond Buyer podcast. I’m Keeley Webster, and my guest today is Bryant Jenkins, a managing principal at Sperry Capital. I invited Bryant here today to talk about some of the pressures
Bonds
New York City spent a record $6 billion with city certified minority- and women-owned business enterprises in fiscal 2023, Mayor Eric Adams said Monday. City agencies and affiliated entities contracted with a record-setting 1,903 certified vendor firms through OneNYC in the last fiscal year. “We’re delivering on our commitment to create an equitable business environment
A group of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority bondholders opposed to the Oversight Board’s proposed plan of adjustment identified its members Wednesday. The new faction, called the PREPA Ad Hoc Group, holds $2.1 billion in uninsured PREPA bonds and hundreds of millions of dollars more in insured bonds. $8.5 billion of PREPA bonds were outstanding
Munis were mixed Monday while U.S. Treasuries saw larger losses, moving yields to multi-year highs. Equities ended mixed. Muni yields were cut up to three basis points, depending on the scale, while UST yields rose seven to 11 basis points. As the 10-year reached a high of 4.684% — the highest level since 2007 —
Many muni market thought leaders were caught off guard by the weekend congressional action that averted a government shutdown by way of enlisting help from House Democrats. “I was surprised,” said Brett Bolton, V.P., federal legislative and regulatory policy, Bond Dealers of America. “Not surprised that the Speaker took the measure he took, but waiting to
The $1.2 billion in private-activity bonds supporting Los Angeles International Airport’s people mover train have been removed from negative watch by Fitch Ratings and placed on negative outlook. The ratings on the bonds issued through the California Municipal Finance Authority were affirmed at BBB-minus. The people mover is the centerpiece of LAX’s $5.5 billion Landside
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board dives into FY 2024 with a new budget of $47 million, a 4.8% increase from the previous year. The board kicks off the year with a new request for comment on Rule G-12 on uniform practice, a step towards their goal of retiring 20% of their total interpretive guidance, in
Officials in New York and Pennsylvania expressed their satisfaction with bond sales recently brought to market. New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said the state sold $572.72 million of general obligation bonds on Sept. 27 that received orders of $1.6 billion, or 2.8 times oversubscribed after a one-day retail order period and institutional pricing. Rain
Oklahoma City is looking at short-term financing for an at least $900 million arena for the National Basketball Association’s Thunder if voters approve the continuation of a one-cent sales tax for six years. The city council last week set a Dec. 12 election on the tax and approved a letter of intent with the team,
The MSRB’s annual budget, published at the beginning of our fiscal year, provides the organization with the resources necessary to advance our mission of protecting investors and issuers and promoting the fairness and efficiency of the $4 trillion market that ensures access to capital for communities across the country. For fiscal 2024, the Board approved
Spartanburg, South Carolina, will soon be home to another city’s minor league baseball team with the help of the city’s largest-ever economic development package. Spartanburg’s city council approved a $425 million public-private partnership development deal on Tuesday, anchored on a new 3,500-seat minor league baseball stadium officials said will help revitalize the city’s downtown area.
After selling off for a week and a half, munis ended Friday’s session firmer, but September losses moved the asset class into the red for the year, returning -1.79%. “September and to a lesser degree October have not been kind to municipal investors in recent history, with average returns of -5.7% and -1.8%, respectively, going
September municipal bond issuance rose slightly year-over-year, becoming the first month of 2023 to see supply increase from 2022 levels, as several billion-dollar deals were priced and a general market acceptance of the Fed’s ‘higher for longer’ stance took hold. Led by tax-exempt, new-money deals, September’s total volume ticked up 1.2% to $27.585 billion in
California Democratic leaders are asking the state Supreme Court to remove a business-backed measure from the November ballot that would require voter approval for any increase in state or local taxes. Senate President Pro Tempore Toni Atkins, D-San Diego and Assembly Speaker Robert Rivas, D-Hollister, filed an emergency petition with the state Supreme Court Tuesday
A pair of Texas Congressmen are urging the Federal Railroad Administration to reject joint grant applications by Amtrak and railroad company Texas Central to build high-speed rail between Dallas and Houston. Republicans Rep. Jake Ellzey and Rep. Michael McCaul sent a Sept. 28 letter to the FRA outlining their opposition to the controversial project. The
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has requested comment on draft amendments to Rule G-12 on uniform practice, in efforts to codify, retire and reorganize 40 pieces of interpretive guidance related to interdealer confirmations. The move will aid the MSRB in its goal of retiring approximately 20% of its body of interpretive guidance, much of which
The Citizens Budget Commission has launched a survey of New York City residents, wanting to know what locals think about their quality of life today as well as how they perceive the city is meeting its goals of providing essential services, such as public safety and education. This is only the third time such a
Piper Sandler has named Dustin Avey and Jeremy Garber as co-heads of public finance, replacing Frank Fairman, a 40-year veteran of the firm. Fairman, who headed public finance for the firm since 1991, will remain with Piper Sandler in an advisory capacity “into 2024,” the firm said. “I would like to sincerely thank Frank for
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board will begin FY 2024 focused on market regulation with a new request for comment, improving data for the municipal securities market as itplans to move to a one-minute trade reporting window, and working to update its technology platforms. The MSRB’s FY 2023 concludes at the end of September, and will
Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors. The top three bond guarantee programs in the ranking have an average dollar volume of more than $2.7 billion through the end of June 2023. The average number of issues for the top three is 62. Scroll through to see which programs
Massachusetts’ House of Representatives passed a hotly debated series of tax cuts this week. Following months of legislative back-and-forth on the package’s provisions, state representatives voted 55-1 Wednesday to pass a series of tax cuts expected to provide $561 billion in breaks across its first year. The bill has seen revision after revision since Gov.