2015 Deal of the Year: Southwest Region

Who won this year's Deal of the Year award for the Southwest Region? The winner will be honored on Thursday, December 3 at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan, and later that night will compete with winners in the seven other categories for the right to be named The Bond Buyer's 2015 Deal of the Year.

VOICE OVER: Seven years after more than doubling its debt for a major expansion of its toll system, the North Texas Tollway Authority saw an opportunity to dramatically improve it's debt profile and pursue upgrades in it's credit rating. Through a series of strategic refundings, the NTTA managed to lower it's maximum annual debt service to a level that brought credit upgrades from Moody's Investor service and Standard & Poor's. The upgrades were the first for NTTA since the 2008 recession when it faced the arduous task of raising $3.2 billion for the largest single project in it's history amid a global financial crisis. In the process of adjusting to a new economic reality, NTTA named a new management team and for the first time in it's history, opened competition to replace it's so called legacy team of contractors, financial advisers and bond attorneys. With the great recession giving way to record low interest rates, a resurgent Texas economy and growing demands for investment great munis ,NNTAs new management team aggressively pursued its program to refinance bonds issued during the hard times.