Yvette Shields

Illinois plans to hit the market in the coming months with $3.5 billion to $4 billion of borrowing in three deals.

The Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority of Illinois has selected a finance team as it gears up to enter the market with a big refunding to take advantage of a favorable market.

A group of seven Illinois safety-net hospitals last week unveiled several measures they said could trim $1.4 billion from the state’s Medicaid expenses and eliminate the need for the deeper cuts that Gov. Pat Quinn has requested.

Moody’s Investors Service has signaled that the junk-level rating on MJH Education Assistance Illinois IV LLC’s student housing revenue bonds for the Fullerton Village Project has stabilized by revising the outlook to stable from negative on the senior-lien bonds.

The Illinois Coalition to Protect the Public Commons, a group that opposes public asset privatization, last week announced its concerns over Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s proposal to establish an infrastructure trust bank that would leverage private investment in public projects.

CHICAGO — Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn on Monday tapped his budget director David Vaught to lead the state' economic development efforts and named senior adviser Jerry Stermer to serve as Vaught' temporary replacement.

Chicago has requested a federal extension until the end of the year to decide whether to attempt to privatize Midway Airport, a move that preserves the city's ability to resurrect a lease deal that could generate several billion dollars in up-front cash.

Honing in on infrastructure investment to revitalize Chicago's landscape and economy, Mayor Rahm Emanuel put a price tag of $7.3 billion on public works projects planned over the next four years and pressed airlines to support a fourth new runway at O'Hare International Airport.

CHICAGO — Chicago Public Schools must close an up to $700 million shortfall in its next budget with a more than $1 billion deficit looming in 2014 due to mounting operational, pension and debt service costs amid dwindling federal funds.

Illinois borrowed $4 billion last year to fund capital projects and cover its fiscal 2011 pension payment, putting it among the ranks of top issuers, but its issuance levels actually marked a sharp drop from 2010, when the state flooded the market with $8.7 billion of paper in nine deals.

CHICAGO — The Mayo Clinic took retail orders Tuesday on $200 million of revenue bonds and will open the sale to institutional buyers Wednesday as it finances various capital projects, including a new proton beam therapy center at its flagship campus in Rochester, Minn.

Moody’s Investors Service raised its rating to Baa1 from Baa2 on Wheaton Franciscan Services in recognition of several years of improved operations at the Wisconsin hospital and the strong results expected this year.

Minnesota House Republicans, who hold a majority, last week released a scaled-down version of Gov. Mark Dayton’s proposed capital budget known as the bonding bill package.

Moody’s Investors Service has taken the positive outlook off of St. Paul’s Aa1 rating ahead of the city’s sale later this month of $16 million of new-money general obligation debt.

Standard & Poor’s last week revised the outlook on Governors State University’s A-minus to stable from negative, due in part to the Illinois school’s demonstrated ability to manage cash flow and operations and make timely debt service payments, despite chronic delays in state aid.

CHICAGO — Rating pressures on five Wisconsin school districts involved in a now-worthless $200 million investment product eased on Monday when Moody's Investors Service labeled as a credit positive their partial settlement of a lawsuit against the firms that advised and arranged the deal.

CHICAGO — Standard & Poor's late last week downgraded to D from CC its rating on $39 million of appropriation-backed bonds issued by the Moberly, Mo., Industrial Development Authority in 2010 to help fund construction of a now-abandoned artificial sweetener plant.

CHICAGO — Bids to buy the assets of an upscale continuing-care retirement community in downtown Chicago are due by April 10, with holders of its $229 million of debt hoping for a competitive auction that results in a better recovery rate than the pennies on the dollar offered by an initial bidder.

CHICAGO — An investor with a stake in $39 million of defaulted bonds issued for a failed artificial sweetener plant in Missouri has filed a lawsuit accusing underwriter Morgan Keegan & Co. and counsel Armstrong Teasdale LLP of providing false and misleading information in the offering statement.

With public ire over the former mayor's flawed $1.15 billion lease of Chicago's parking meter system still clouding the local political landscape for public private partnerships, the city is turning to a next-generation model as it eyes private dollars to fund infrastructure and lower the cost of some city services.