SEC Releases ARS Guidance

WASHINGTON — The Securities and Exchange Commission late Friday released heavily anticipated guidance that will allow issuers to bid on their auction rate securities without running afoul of the securities laws if certain conditions are met and such bidding is allowed by the bond documents and is disclosed in advance.

The guidance was contained in a four-page letter, that was to be posted on the commission’s Web site, which was sent to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association as well as a lawyer at Ropes & Gray LLP in Boston representing a group of hospital and health care issuers in Massachusetts and California. It was signed by Erik Sirri, the SEC director of trading and markets, and John White, director of the commission’s division of corporation finance.

The guidance includes discussion of several key issues that issuers and borrowers would have to disclose before bidding on their auction rate securities.

“This is a good result for the health care borrowers dealing with the auction rate bond debacle,” Anne Phillips Ogilby, the Ropes & Gray lawyer said.

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