Cook County, in its recent sale of $690 million of new-money and refunding bonds, captured a total interest cost of 4.35% on the issue, board President Todd Stroger’s office said Monday.
The county scaled back the size of the issue by more than $300 million by opting not to refund some of its taxable debt because interest rates were not favorable on the day of the sale, the office said.
A $309 million issue of Build America Bonds captured a yield of 4.05% after the 35% federal subsidy, Stroger said. Another $23 million of short-term taxable notes captured rates from 3.05% to 3.50%. An $80 million issue of taxable pension bonds that mature from 2011 to 2013 captured respective yields of 1.43%, 1.96%, and 2.50%.
A $278 million tax-exempt general obligation refunding issue captured interest rates ranging from 4.10% to 4.71%, the county said. Of that refunding issue, roughly $165 million was variable-rate debt that the county shifted into a fixed-rate mode. Most of Cook’s $3.2 billion debt is now in fixed-rate mode.
“We’ve been able to restructure and reduce the cost of a portion of Cook County’s long-term debt and ensure we’ve put in place the capital Cook County needs to fund our capital projects,” Stroger said.
