Deal of the Year 2017 - Far West: Bay Area Toll Authority

The Bay Area Toll Authority was the financing vehicle for more than $13 billion of bonds used to reinforce the San Francisco-area's seven state-owned bridges against earthquakes.

The new East Span of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge opened in 2013 and the Seismic Retrofit Program for all seven spans is almost complete. But BATA continues to monitor its capital structure and the market to capture potential benefits.

As a result, the authority this year put together a $1.95 billion dollar deal that saved money by combining the remarketing of bonds that were approaching their mandatory tender date with a fixed rate refunding.

The $1.4 billion dollars of subordinate fixed rate refunding bonds generated $143 million of net present value savings.

The $552 million dollar term rate remarketing took advantage of the soft-put step up structure the authority pioneered in 2013.

The fixed rate refunding bonds were amortized first and the term rate bonds second. This “wrap” allowed BATA to reduce the average life of costly fixed rate debt by approximately five years, at no incremental cost. The amortization also took into account all outstanding debt service to reduce BATA’s maximum annual debt service.

VOICEOVER: The Bay Area Toll Authority was the financing vehicle for more than $13 billion of bonds used to reinforce the San Francisco-area’s seven state owned bridges against earthquakes. The new East Span of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge opened in 2013 and the Seismic Retrofit Program for all seven spans is almost complete.

But BATA continues to monitor its capital structure and the market to capture potential benefits. As a result, the authority this year put together a $1.95 billion deal that saved money by combining the remarketing of bonds that were approaching their mandatory tender date with a fixed rate refunding.

The $1.4 billion of subordinate fixed rate refunding bonds generated $143 million of net present value savings. The $552 million term rate remarketing took advantage of the soft-put step up structure the authority pioneered in 2013. The fixed rate refunding bonds were amortized first and the term rate bonds second.

This “wrap” allowed BATA to reduce the average life of costly fixed rate debt by approximately five years, at no incremental cost. The amortization also took into account all outstanding debt service to reduce BATA’s maximum annual debt service.