Bonds

The Metropolitan College of New York is trying to sell real estate in lower Manhattan as part of a deal with bondholders allowing the school to skip a debt payment in November. The private college hired Cushman & Wakefield as its broker to market and sell “either in whole or in part” its Manhattan campus,

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors. The 10 largest issuers of education issuance in the first half of 2024 accounted for $15.219 billion. The Los Angeles Unified School District ranked first with a $2.975 billion Build America Bonds redemption and general obligation bond refunding deal that priced in

Construction progress of Terminal 6 at John F. Kennedy International Airport in July.JFK Millenium Partners The P3-fueled upgrades to New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport have another municipal bond market stamp of approval. The New York Transportation Development Corporation priced an upsized $1.9 billion of special facilities revenue bonds for the JFK Airport Terminal

Enjoy complimentary access to top ideas and insights — selected by our editors. Education issuance in the first half of 2024 rose 27% year-over-year, increasing to $64.516 billion across 1,646 issues from $50.796 billion in 1,559 transactions from 1H 2023.Supply was led by K-12 education at $40.971 billion, up 7.9% year-over-year.Higher education issuance, though, surge

Municipals improved Friday after a volatile week for the asset class, ignoring losses in U.S. Treasuries, while equities closed the week mixed. Investors will see higher yields and ratios along with a nearly $11 billion new-issue slate for the final week of the month and the last ahead of the election. Triple-A yields fell three

Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Beth Hammack said that while progress on lowering inflation had resumed in recent months, officials aren’t yet ready to declare their mission accomplished.  “We have made good progress, but inflation is still running above the FOMC’s 2% objective,” Hammack said Thursday, referring to the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee.

Record bond volume, a focus on climate, more floating-rate debt and broader integration of municipals into fixed-income markets is on the horizon for the public finance industry. Those are among the factors that will lead to market growth in 2025 and beyond, panelists at this week’s Bond Buyer California Public Finance conference said. The increase

Tom Vales, a muni bond electronic trading expert, has joined Build America Mutual’s board as an independent director. The bond insurer has seven board members, including three independent directors. Vales will succeed John White, who is retiring, according to a press release. “Tom’s career has been about making fixed-income markets more transparent and efficient,” said Seán

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board will be issuing a request for information on its rate card fee setting process, one of the many topics that were discussed during the MSRB’s first quarterly board meeting of FY 2025 held Oct. 23-24. The rate card request for information will be out in the next couple of weeks,

A California Bay Area school district that recently made waves for failing to pass a budget on time sold $352 million of general obligation bonds last week. The district entered the market with a downgrade to its underlying rating, but the deal was bolstered with a bond insurance wrap that covered most maturities. West Contra

Shreveport, Louisiana, was downgraded by Moody’s Ratings.Adobe Stock Shreveport, Louisiana, was downgraded to Baa2 from Baa1 Wednesday by Moody’s Ratings. The agency maintains a negative outlook on the rating. The downgrade of Shreveport’s issuer, general obligation and senior revenue ratings will affect $2.1 billion in debt when the city completes the anticipated $88 million Series

Municipals saw gains Thursday, ending four consecutive trading sessions of rising yields. U.S. Treasuries improved and equities ended mixed. Municipal yields fell up to seven basis points, depending on the scale, while UST yields fell one to five basis points. Muni-UST ratios fell slightly. The two-year ratio Thursday was at 66%, the three-year at 65%,

State and local governments in the West, Southwest and Southeast are leading the pack in economic growth as some analysts are seeing good times for the municipal bond market.  “We’ve had $40 billion monthly in new issue calendars for the last seven months in 2024,” said Tom Schuette, senior vice president and investment grade credit

A vacant storefront in San Francisco, which was downgraded by Moody’s Ratings this week.Bloomberg News San Francisco lost a triple-A rating this week after Moody’s ratings downgraded it to Aa1 from Aaa. The rating agency cited the city’s weakened economy, which has narrowed the city’s finances reducing its flexibility to address ongoing spending pressures, in

North Carolina’s largest transportation project to date may be structured as a public-private partnership after the controversial toll lanes proposal won a pair of key votes last week. The Charlotte City Council and transportation planning group Charlotte Regional Transportation Planning Organization gave the green light to the North Carolina Department of Transportation to pursue a

The Colorado Educational and Cultural Facilities Authority approved revenue bonds to buy and expand the Stanley Hotel.Adobe Stock The Colorado Educational and Cultural Facilities Authority will issue up to $475 million of revenue bonds to finance the purchase of a historic hotel that inspired Stephen King’s The Shining, under resolutions passed by its board on

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson celebrated Tuesday’s City Council passage of a $1.5 billion bond refinancing.Bloomberg News The Chicago City Council has approved a plan to refinance $1.5 billion of the city’s debt. The council had postponed action on the refinancing at its Oct. 9 meeting.  The city’s finance team expects to issue the bonds in

Tapping public money streams to build stadiums and arenas for privately-owned sports teams is a thriving part of the municipal market despite the fact that it routinely generates controversy about the ultimate value to taxpayers. “The problem is, you’re trying to do a mathematical equation over thirty years,” said David Abrams, a banker with Inner

The U.S. Environmental and Protection Agency’s new PFAS water treatment rules are most likely to hit water utilities serving small service areas with poor populace and old infrastructure the hardest, analysts say. In April the EPA issued final regulations on rules for utilities to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances from drinking water. The substances are

Houston Controller Chris Hollins’ investor conference took place Tuesday without the  participation of key city officials after Mayor John Whitmore raised “pay-to-play” concerns about corporate sponsorships for the event and requested a city probe. Hollins countered on Tuesday, calling on the Houston inspector general’s office to also investigate corporate sponsorships for the mayor’s Sept. 17

Municipals saw a sharp correction Wednesday, with yields rising double-digits as the asset class played catch up to U.S. Treasuries after recent outperformance led to too-rich ratios. Deals in the primary repriced to higher yields as a result. Muni yields rose five to 18 basis points, depending on the scale, pushing the 10-year above 3%