Empire State Development sells $1.8B as market eyes tax talks

The municipal bond market saw Empire State Development sell almost $2 billion of bonds in five competitive offerings on Thursday as the market focused on tax changes being worked on in Washington.

Tax-exempt private activity bonds are likely to remain in the final tax bill, sources told The Bond Buyer, but Republicans are still negotiating the PAB provisions.

Primary market
In the competitive arena, ESD sold $1.76 billion of general purpose state personal income tax revenue bonds for the New York State Urban Development Corp.

Morgan Stanley won the $585.35 million of Series 2017D taxable Maturity Group 1 bonds with a true interest cost of 2.8902%.

Jefferies won the $433.49 million of Series 2017D taxable Maturity Group 2 bonds with a TIC of 3.4042%. Pricing information was not immediately available.

JPMorgan Securities won the $302.73 million of Series 2017C tax-exempt Maturity Group 3 bonds with a TIC of 3.6169%. Pricing information was not immediately available.

Morgan Stanley won the $225.07 million of Series 2017C tax-exempt Maturity Group 2 bonds with a TIC of 3.2060%. Pricing information was not immediately available.

Morgan Stanley won the $211.92 million of Series 2017C tax-exempt Maturity Group 1 bonds with a TIC of 1.9476%. Pricing information was not immediately available.

The deals are rated AAA by S&P Global Ratings and AA-plus by Fitch Ratings.

Since 2007, the ESDC has issued roughly $19.47 billion of bonds, with the most issuance before this year occurring in 2013 when it sold $3.28 billion of bonds. The corporation did not come to market in 2012.

BB-121517-MUN

In the negotiated sector, JPMorgan priced Partners Healthcare System’s $778.26 million of Series 2017 revenue bonds for two issuers.

The New Hampshire Health and Education Facilities Authority’s $103.56 million revenue bonds were priced as 5s to yield from 1.61% in 2019 to 3.05% in 2037 and 3.10% in 2041.

The $674.695 million of Massachusetts Development Finance Agency’s Series 2017S revenue bonds were priced to yield from 1.61% with a 5% coupon in 2019 to 3.05% with a 5% coupon in 2037. A 2041 maturity was priced as 4s to yield 3.45% and a 2047 maturity was priced as 5s to yield 3.16%.

The deal is rated Aa3 by Moody’s and AA-minus by S&P.

BOK Financial Securities priced the West Travis County Public Utility Agency, Texas’ $151.73 million of Series 2017 revenue refunding bonds.

The issue was priced to yield from 1.52% with a 2% coupon in 2018 to 3.32% with a 4% coupon in 2037. A 2041 maturity was priced as 4s to yield 3.39% and a 2045 maturity was priced as 4s to yield 3.43%.

The deal is insured by Build America Mutual and rated AA by S&P.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch is expected to price Philadelphia’s $721 million of Series 2017A non-AMT and Series 2017B AMT airport revenue and refunding bonds.

The deal is rated A1 by Moody’s Investors Service and A by S&P and Fitch.

Morgan Stanley received the written award on Wisconsin’s $347.03 million of GO refunding bonds of 2017 Series 3.

The issue was priced to yield from 2.10% with a 5% coupon in 2026 to 2.91% with a 4% coupon in 2034.

The deal is rated Aa1 by Moody’s, AA by S&P and AA-plus by Fitch and Kroll Bond Rating Agency.

Bond Buyer 30-day visible supply at $12.95B
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar decreased $2.76 billion to $12.95 billion on Thursday. The total is comprised of $2.40 billion of competitive sales and $10.55 billion of negotiated deals.

Secondary trading
The MBIS municipal non-callable 5% GO benchmark scale was stronger in midday trading.

The 10-year muni benchmark yield fell to 2.283% on Thursday from the final read of 2.287% on Wednesday, according to Municipal Bond Information Services. The MBIS 30-year benchmark muni yield decreased to 2.749% from 2.770%.

The MBIS benchmark index, which is comprised of investment-grade municipal securities, is updated hourly on the Bond Buyer Data Workstation.

Top-rated municipal bonds were stronger at mid-session. The yield on the 10-year benchmark muni general obligation fell as much as two basis points from 2.01% on Wednesday, while the 30-year GO yield dropped two to four basis points from 2.61%, according to a read of MMD’s triple-A scale.

U.S. Treasuries were mixed on Thursday. The yield on the two-year Treasury rose to 1.82% from 1.79%, the 10-year Treasury yield rose to 2.37% from 2.36% and the yield on the 30-year Treasury decreased to 2.74% from 2.75%.

On Wednesday, the 10-year muni-to-Treasury ratio was calculated at 85.5% compared with 85.4% on Tuesday, while the 30-year muni-to-Treasury ratio stood at 95.4% versus 96.4%, according to MMD.

MSRB: Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 51,365 trades on Wednesday on volume of $20.86 billion.

Tax-exempt money market funds saw inflows
Tax-exempt money market funds experienced inflows of $271.3 million, bringing total net assets to $130.50 billion in the week ended Dec. 11, according to The Money Fund Report, a service of iMoneyNet.com.

This followed an inflow of $1.06 million to $130.23 billion in the previous week.

The average, seven-day simple yield for the 199 weekly reporting tax-exempt funds increased to 0.53% from 0.51% in the previous week.

The total net assets of the 827 weekly reporting taxable money funds increased $34.30 billion to $2.682 trillion in the week ended Dec. 12, after an inflow of $18.54 billion to $2.648 trillion the week before.

The average, seven-day simple yield for the taxable money funds rose to 0.76% from 0.74% from the prior week.

Overall, the combined total net assets of the 1,026 weekly reporting money funds increased $34.57 billion to $2.813 trillion in the week ended Dec. 12, after inflows of $19.60 billion to $2.778 trillion in the prior week.

Data appearing in this article from Municipal Bond Information Services, including the MBIS municipal bond index, is available on The Bond Buyer Data Workstation. Click here for a brief tour of the Workstation, or contact Vanessa Kim at 212-803-8474 for more information.

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Primary bond market Secondary bond market Municipal bond funds State of Wisconsin City of Philadelphia, PA
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