Texas

With all new leadership, the city of Houston will weigh into the bond market with $800 million of revenue and refunding bonds for its combined utility system.

Low oil prices showed a broad impact on the Texas economy in January as sales tax revenue fell 4% below the same month last year.

Former Texas Gov. Rick Perry told a Bond Buyer conference that policies developed during his record 14 years in office will shield the state from serious damage from falling oil prices.

Texas state and local governments have learned how to manage the boom-bust cycles of the oil industry and are fairly well positioned for lengthy downturn, experts told the The Bond Buyer’s Texas Public Finance Conference.

Relieving the congestion on urban highways in Texas will be a continual process that requires additional funding sources, planners say.

The nation's leading bond counsel firm will open its Houston office with five attorneys from two prominent firms in the Bayou City.

Two Dallas-area school districts – one serving some of the wealthiest students in the nation, the other some of the poorest – are going to the bond market.

With falling oil prices taking the bloom off the Lone Star State's economy, bond issuers and industry executives will examine the future at The Bond Buyer's Texas Public Finance Conference in Austin.

Dallas Area Rapid Transit expects savings of $47 million or about 9% on a $483 million advance refunding of 2008 bonds.

Texas will spend $1.3 billion on 14 highway projects aimed at reducing traffic congestion in five cities.

While lower oil prices are likely to have a stimulative effect on the national economy, we are wary of impacts on the finances of local credits in the Oil Patch.

Two of the top broker-dealer and financial advisory firms in the Southwest officially combined under the management of Hilltop Holdings on Monday.

Montgomery County, Texas, officials estimate that investors' flight to quality during a severe downturn in the equities and commodities markets helped reduce interest costs on a $112 million bond deal by nearly $27 million.

Texas school bond volume doubled to $2.2 billion in January compared to the same month last year.

A continuing decline in oil prices will strain the budgets of five producing states to varying degrees, according to Standard & Poor's.

A hungry primary market gets a $250 million taste of top-rated Texas variable-rate debt from the Veterans Land Board.

The law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe will include a public finance team as part of its new Houston law offices that will hire 20 lawyers from other firms.

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was co-namesake of the Bracewell & Giuliani, is leaving the Houston-based law firm for Greenberg Traurig.

The “Great Financial Crisis” continues to haunt the world’s economy because government failed to repair a damaged system and prosecute fraud, says University of Texas economist James K. Galbraith, who speaks next month at a Bond Buyer event in Austin.

The University of Houston will issue $272 million of tuition revenue bonds that that combine taxable and tax-exempt debt.