The Florida Municipal Power Agency Wednesday is scheduled to close on its sale of $584 million of new-money and refunding revenue bonds, including $188 million for the first of seven transactions it has planned in order to refund all of its outstanding auction-rate securities.
The ARS refinanced by the bonds will be redeemed by Oct. 10, the FMPA said in a statement.
In addition to the refunding, the Series 2008 bonds that priced Sept. 4 will provide $200 million of new money to build a 300-megawatt, natural gas-fired generator. A nearly $75 million taxable portion of the sale, Series 2008B, will pay for the FMPA’s ownership interest in natural gas reserve investments and to acquire a spare parts inventory for future maintenance.
As the credit market disruptions unfolded this year, the agency spent months preparing to restructure its $1.3 billion debt portfolio and to exit $871 million of ARS.
The FMPA is planning six additional auction-rate refundings in September and October — three are expected to be fixed-rate transactions while three are expected to be sold as variable-rate demand obligations.
Yields on bonds from the $509.6 million tax-exempt Series A ranged from 2.03% with a 3% coupon in 2009 to 5.31% with a 5% coupon in 2031. The bonds are callable at par in 2018, except those bonds maturing in 2019, which are not callable.
The FMPA is a wholesale power agency owned by 30 municipal electric utilities serving some two million Floridians.
