The Massachusetts Housing Finance Agency is looking to update its pool of underwriters to work on single- and multi-family bond transactions.
Submissions are due Jan. 18. The agency will select senior managing banks and co-managing underwriters. Firms will serve for three years, beginning around April 1, according to the RFP. MassHousing's current pool will expire in March.
Interested firms must provide book-running experience during the past two years at a state housing finance agency. The RFP asks for capabilities with tax-exempt and taxable transactions for single- and multifamily housing developments.
MassHousing is looking for competitive advantages banks can add to its institutional and retail bond sale experience. Banks must detail prior bond deals that offered an issuer the lowest cost of borrowing and lowest negative arbitrage while also achieving maximum bond yield-to-mortgage-rate spread.
The agency last sold $69.9 million of tax-exempt Series 2010A multifamily housing bonds on Dec. 1. Bank of America Merrill Lynch was book-runner on the deal. Goldman, Sachs & Co. was the original book-runner for that sale. MassHousing removed Goldman from the sale at the bank's request.
Goldman was prompted to make the request after one of its former bankers, Neil Morrison, served as an unpaid volunteer in state Treasurer Timothy Cahill's failed gubernatorial bid, raising the question of whether he surpassed the $250 political contribution limit and Goldman properly disclosed his work on the campaign. A Goldman spokesman declined to comment on whether or not the firm would submit an application to MassHousing's RFP.
The agency's current senior-management pool includes: Bank of America Merrill Lynch, an inactive Goldman, Citi, Barclays Capital and Morgan Stanley.
MassHousing sold $498 million of debt in nine transactions this year, including $91.5 million for single-family housing and $406.5 million to help finance multifamily developments, according to Thomson Reuters. The agency sold $314.2 million of debt in 2009 in 12 transactions, including $176.1 million for multifamily projects. Since its creation in 1966, MassHousing has provided more than $11 billion for affordable housing in the state.
