Treasury Dept. Posts More SLGS Pricing Information

The Treasury Department has begun posting more detailed pricing information on time-deposit State and Local Government Series Securities (SLGS) for issuers and other market participants.

SLGS typically are purchased by tax-exempt bond issuers for advance refunding escrows to ensure the investments comply with the federal tax law’s yield restriction or arbitrage rebate requirements. Unlike Treasuries purchased in the open market, SLGS can be specially tailored to issuers’ municipal bond maturities.

Treasury’s Bureau of Public Debt offers both demand-deposit and time-deposit SLGS.

Demand-deposit SLGS are one-day certificates of indebtedness, in which the principal and daily accrued interest are automatically rolled over each day until redemption is requested. The daily interest rate for these SLGS are based on an adjustment of the average yield in the most recent auction of 13-week Treasury bills.

Time-deposit SLGS are issued as certifications of indebtedness, notes or bonds, with maturities of between 15 days and 40 years. The interest rates on these SLGS are one basis point below the current estimated Treasury borrowing rate for securities of comparable maturities.

Historically, the Treasury Bureau of Public Debt’s TreasuryDirect web site has posted, on a daily basis, monthly interest rates for time-deposit SLGS only in the first year and less frequent interest rates for later years.

But on Monday the website began posting interest rates or pricing, in monthly increments, for maturities up to 30 years.

Ann Eichmiller, an analyst in the bureau’s special investments branch, said most issuers are trying to match SLGS with munis that have maturity dates that fall between full years.

Treasury said on its TreasuryDirect website that the new table would provide  issuers and other market participants “more accurate pricing” for time-deposit SLGS.  ƒá

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