Milwaukee Wraps New Money Borrowing

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All three rating agencies affirmed Milwaukee's ratings ahead of its sale of last week of $187 million of general obligation bonds and notes.

Also affirmed were top short-term ratings on revenue anticipation notes.

Moody's Investors Service rates the city's $792 million of GO debt Aa3 with a stable outlook. Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's affirmed the city's AA ratings and stable outlooks.

The city took competitive bids May 14. The city sold $21 million of taxable GO general corporate bonds, $28 million of tax-exempt GO general purpose bonds, $138 million of GO promissory notes, and $125 million of RANs. Bank of America Merrill Lynch won the GOs with a true interest cost of 2.54%. TD Securities won the RANs with an effective rate of 0.1413% and a premium of $610,750.

On the drawing board is a qualified school construction bond sale next month and school cash flow borrowing later in the year.

Further down the line is a possible tax-increment financing deal for the city's proposed streetcar system. The common council authorized up to $49 million, said comptroller Martin Matson and public debt specialist Richard Li.

On the current RAN borrowing, the city opted to drop its GO pledge. Instead, principal and interest payments will be secured by the city's $186 million November state shared revenue receipts. Some other unassigned general fund revenue revenues are also pledged, according to Matson and Li.

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Wisconsin
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