The Little School That Could

The small Los Nietos School District swam against the tides of the market by pricing a bond deal this week at attractive rates, its financial adviser said Wednesday.

The Los Angeles County district, which enrolls about 2,500 students in grades K-8, resized its original $15 million deal to just under $10 million, allowing the general obligation bonds to be sold as a bank-qualified deal, Abel J. Guillen, vice president of financial adviser Caldwell Flores Winters Inc., said in an e-mail.

Underwriter George K. Baum & Co. priced the bonds and achieved an all in true interest cost of 5.14%, which Guillen said was comparable to yields before the market’s meltdown.

Bond insurance from Assured Guaranty Corp. cost 20 basis points, Guillen said. The district’s GO bonds carry an underlying A-plus rating from Standard & Poor’s.

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