Massachusetts

Harvard University braved the most volatile market in years this week to price a $750 million taxable deal. Princeton is hot on its heels. 

Northeastern University plans to sell municipal bonds to help replace its 115-year-old Matthews Arena, long-ago home of the Boston Bruins and Celtics.

The Massachusetts Clean Water Trust has seen higher demand from local utilities for loans because of climate change threats and clean water regulations. 

The muni market saw $507.585 billion of debt issued in 2024, up 31.8% from $385.061 in 2023. This surpasses the previous record of $484.601 billion in 2020 by more than $20 billion, per LSEG data.

Muni mutual funds saw outflows after 23 weeks of inflows as LSEG Lipper reported investors pulled $316.2 million for the week ending Dec. 11. High-yield municipal bond funds, though, saw inflows of $192.3 million.

Mega projects in Boston and Philadelphia top the list.

Bonds will finance construction of the South Coast Rail Project, which will restore commuter rail service between Boston and southeastern Massachusetts.

Massachusetts drew multiple bidders for all four tranches when it sold $850 million of general obligation bonds competitively last week.

Municipal bond mutual funds saw inflows as investors added $956 million to funds after $1.047 billion of inflows the week prior, according to LSEG Lipper.

New York state's issuers topped the Northeast charts as issuance rose in nearly every sector of the market during the first half of 2024.

One-time spending, rainy-day funds and fare hikes are forming a rickety bridge for crossing the transit funding ravine.

In a year characterized by a rise in mega deals, the agency looks to address an advancing financial "cliff."

In the first half of 2024, winding-down federal aid, a resurgence of Build America Bond refundings and election uncertainty have contributed to the surge in issuance, said James Welch, a portfolio manager at Principal Asset Management.

April's volume stood at $40.456 billion in 653 issues, up 21.2% from $33.377 billion in 666 issues in 2023.

"Just like the ATM became an additional transaction channel in the banking industry, I believe distributed ledger technology will provide municipal issuers with a similarly valued tool to sell their bonds," said Rick Coscia, Quincy's Strategic Asset Manager.

Boston is more dependent on property taxes from commercial real estate, and property taxes in general, than most of its large-city peers.

High rates and high inflation, coupled with rich reserves, pushed off or delayed issuers coming to market in 2023, noted James Pruskowski, chief investment officer at 16Rock Asset Management.

An off year from municipal bond issuers in the Northeast in 2023 pulled the national volume numbers into negative territory.

The top five bond financings have an average dollar volume of nearly $1.5 billion.

Maura Healey's budget plan for fiscal 2025 features more money for the Commonwealth Transportation Fund, which would increase its bond capacity by $1.1 billion.