New York State and New York City’s borrowing authorities plan to issue up to $7.89 billion of debt in the first quarter, of which $7.02 billion will be new money and $870.5 million will be refunding or conversion, according to a forward issuance calendar released by the state comptroller’s office last week.
The amount of refunding and conversion has dropped compared to recent quarters when issuers were getting out of auction-rate securities en masse following the collapse of that market last February. In the second quarter of 2008, for example, the forward issuance calendar identified $5.64 billion of refunding but only $4.85 billion of new money.
The volume of new-money debt on tap for this quarter is an increase compared to both the $5.8 billion that had been planned for the final quarter of 2008 and the $6.1 billion planned for the first quarter of 2008.
The comptroller’s office produces the calendar to coordinate bond transactions among different issuers and the calendar is subject to change.
The Dormitory Authority of the State of New York plans to market the most debt this quarter, selling up to $1.6 billion of debt of which $520 million will be refunding.
The state plans to sell $2.08 billion of personal income tax bonds this quarter through DASNY, the Empire State Development Corp., the New York State Environmental Facilities Corp., and the New York State Housing Finance Agency. The state also plans to market $485 million of general obligation bonds. The ESDC’s PIT sale totaled $1.1 billion and was successfully marketed last week.
February will likely be the busiest in the quarter with $2.76 billion of transactions scheduled compared to $2.15 billion this month and $2.1 billion in March.
New York City credits will be very active with the New York City Transitional Finance Authority planning to sell $1 billion of revenue bonds backed by state school construction aid, $950 million of bonds being marketed by the New York City Municipal Water Finance Authority, and the planned sale of $800 million of city GOs.
Other issuers planning bond transactions this quarter include the Long Island Power Authority with $250 million of new money and refunding, the State of New York Mortgage Agency with a $90 million refunding, and the New York State Thruway Authority with a new-money sale of $210 million on its dedicated highway and bridge trust fund credit next month.
All but three deals are listed as negotiated. Those three, which are state-backed debt, are listed as “to be determined.”
