Puerto Rico

The GDB for Puerto Rico, fiscal agent and financial advisor to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, ranked number seven among top issuers of municipal debt in 2011, taking advantage of market conditions to sell $3.6 billion of notes.

Moody’s Investors Service has revised its rating outlook on the University of Puerto Rico to negative and confirmed the Baa2 rating on its pledged revenue bonds and Baa3 rating on its Series 2000A bonds.

In the largest municipal bond sale thus far in 2012, Puerto Rico sold $2.3 billion of its public improvement refunding bonds, upsized from an expected $1.5 billion priced ahead of schedule.

The Puerto Rico Aqueduct and Sewer Authority is set to come to market with $1.25 billion of senior-lien revenue bonds, the largest scheduled sale in the long-term market so far this year.

Standard & Poor's has placed the Puerto Rico Highway and Transportation Authority's grant anticipation revenue bonds on credit watch with negative implications.

Moody's Investors Service assigned a negative outlook to the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority's $8.23 billion of outstanding power revenue bonds while affirming its A3 rating.

Puerto Rico said its general fund expenditures for the third quarter of fiscal 2012 were $1.86 billion, 1% below amounts budgeted.

Six finalists are in the running for a contract to privatize Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport in San Juan, the Puerto Rico Public-Private Partnership Authority and the Puerto Rico Ports Authority have announced.

A member of Puerto Rico's House of Representatives is asking the commonwealth's comptroller’s office to review a $2.4 million contract between the Puerto Rico Public Private Partnerships Authority and law firm Mayer Brown LLP, saying a conflict of interest exists regarding the proposed privatization of Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport.

Some of investment banking's marquee names are competing to run Puerto Rico's main airport under a privatization plan that's part of a Federal Aviation Administration pilot program.

Puerto Rico received 12 responses from infrastructure funds, U.S. private-equity firms, Canadian pensions, and developers based in Spain and India to a request for qualifications for a privatization of up to 50 years of its principal airport, near the capital, San Juan.

Moody's Investors Service downgraded Puerto Rico's general obligation rating Monday to Baa1 from A3, with a negative outlook, one day before the Puerto Rico Public Building Authority's planned pricing of $981 million of bonds.

The Puerto Rico Public-Private Partnership and the Puerto Rico Ports Authority have set Aug. 8 as the due date for responses to a request for qualifications for a privatization of Luis Munoz Marín International Airport in San Juan.

Puerto Rico will issue its first new-money general obligation bond sale in nearly three years, a $304 million offering that will help finance transportation infrastructure upgrades.

A consortium led by Goldman, Sachs & Co. will pay a total $1.43 billion to maintain and operate Puerto Rico's busiest toll road for 40 years.

Puerto Rico's general fund revenues from July through April total $6.4 billion, $105 million above budgeted estimates due to strong business tax and excise tax collections.

The Government Development Bank for Puerto Rico’s economic activity index increased slightly to 127.3 in March, as gasoline consumption fell for the second month in a row. Year over year, March’s 127.3 reading is down 1.8% from 129.7 in 2010. That is the smallest year-over-year decline since August 2007, according to the GDB’s March EAI report.

Puerto Rico’s general fund revenues from July through March total $5.05 billion, just $11 million more than budgeted estimates.

Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuño Tuesday evening released a $9.26 billion budget proposal for fiscal 2012 that will use $285 million of sales tax borrowing to help close a $610 million ­deficit.

SAN JUAN — Puerto Rico plans to issue $295 million of new-money general obligation debt by June 30, its first such borrowing in more than two years.