Munis Still Steady as New Wave of Supply Hits

bb102016mun.jpg
bb102016mun.jpg

A few larger deals from issuers in New Jersey and Pennsylvania hit screens, as more deals are expected to flow in, in what will be a busy day for market participants.

Primary Market

Citi priced the New Jersey Healthcare Financing Authority's $1 billion-plus of revenue and refunding bonds for the Robert Wood Johnson Barnabas Health Obligated Group. It is the $723.635 million of tax-exempts, which priced, will be accompanied by $456 million of corporate CUISPs.

The tax-exempt portion was priced to yield from 1.70% with a 5% coupon in 2022 to 3.56% with a 4% coupon in 2036. A term bond in 2043 was priced to yield 3.68% with a 4% coupon and 3.33% with a 5% coupon in a split maturity. No pricing information was immediately available for the taxable portion. The tax-exempts are rated A1 by Moody's Investors Service and A-plus by S&P Global Ratings.

Morgan Stanley priced Commonwealth Financing Authority, Pa.'s $758.755 million of federally taxable revenue bonds. The bonds were priced at par to yield 0.475% in the 2027 through 2029 maturities and 2033 and 2038. The 2027 maturity was roughly 190 basis points above the comparable Treasury; the 2028 maturity was roughly 200 basis points above the comparable Treasury; the 2029 maturity was roughly 210 basis points above the comparable Treasury; the 2033 maturity was roughly 162.5 basis points above the comparable Treasury; the 2038 maturity was roughly 175 basis points above the comparable Treasury. The deal is rated A1 by Moody's and A-plus by S&P and Fitch.

BAML priced the Pennsylvania State Public School Building Authority's $568.49 million of project school lease revenue refunding bonds for the School District of Philadelphia. The bonds were priced to yield from 1.66% with a 5% coupon in 2017 to 3.76% with a 5% coupon in 2036. The deal is insured by the Pennsylvania State Aid Intercept program, with the exception of the $327.045 million maturing 2031 through 2033, which is insured by Assured Guaranty. The deal is rated A2 by Moody's and A-plus by Fitch.

In the competitive sector, the state of Georgia auctioned $891.645 million of GO refunding bonds in two separate sales of $508.985 million and $382.66 million. BAML won the larger deal with a true interest cost of 1.74%. The bonds were priced to yield from 0.95% with a 5% coupon in 2019 to 2.10% with a 5% coupon in 2029.

Citi won the other sale with a TIC of 1.65%. The bonds were priced to yield from 0.97% with a 5% coupon in 2019 to 1.96% with a 5% coupon in 2028. Both deals are rated triple-A by Moody's, S&P and Fitch.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is expected to price the School District of Philadelphia's $817 million of general obligation, GO refunding and taxable bonds.

Since 2007, the school district of Philadelphia has sold just over $4 billion of securities, despite not issuing anything from 2012-2014. Wednesday's sale will put the district over $1 billion for this year, marking the third time since 2007 it has issued more than $1 billion in a year, with the others occurring in 2008 and 2010.

Secondary Market

Munis were unchanged on Wednesday, as the yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation was steady at 1.73% from Tuesday, while the yield on the 30-year was unchanged at 2.56%, according to a read of Municipal Market Data's triple-A scale.

U.S. Treasuries were higher Wednesday. The yield on the two-year Treasury was down to 0.79% from 0.80% on Tuesday, the 10-year Treasury yield fell to 1.73% from 1.75% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury bond decreased to 2.50% from 2.51%.

On Tuesday, the 10-year muni to Treasury ratio was calculated at 99.1% compared to 89.3% on Monday, while the 30-year muni to Treasury ratio stood at 102.0% versus 91.2%, according to MMD.

MSRB: Previous Session's Activity

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 38,782 trades on Tuesday on volume of $9.906 billion.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
MORE FROM BOND BUYER