Mass. SBA, Colo. deals sell

bb-071018-munimid

Municipal bond buyers were seeing the first of the week’s deals come to market as two big competitive issues sold.

Primary market
In the competitive arena, the Massachusetts School Building Authority sold $200 million of Series 2018B subordinated dedicated sales tax revenue bonds on Tuesday.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch won the bonds with a true interest cost of 4.0306%.

The deal is rated Aa3 by Moody’s Investors Service, AA by S&P Global Ratings and AA-plus by Fitch Ratings.

The financial advisor is Acacia Financial Group; the bound counsel is Mintz Levin.

Since 2009, the SBA has sold about $6.5 billion of debt, with the most issuance occurring in 2012 when it sold $1.68 billion. The authority did not come to market in 2014 or 2017.

BB-071118-MUN

In the short-term competitive sector, Colorado sold $310 million of Series 2018A education loan program tax and revenue anticipation notes.

Three groups won the TRANs, including Wells Fargo Securities, BAML and Morgan Stanley.

The deal is rated MIG1 by Moody’s and SP1-plus by S&P.

The financial advisor is Kutak Rock and the bond counsel is RBC Capital Markets.

In the negotiated sector, Citigroup is set to price Atlanta’s $279 million of Series 2018B water and wastewater revenue and refunding bonds on Tuesday.

Citi is also set to price the Mesquite Independent School District, Texas’ $125 million of Series 2018 unlimited tax school building bonds, backed by the Permanent School Fund guarantee program.

Tuesday’s sales

Massachusetts:
Click here for the SBA deal

Bond Buyer 30-day visible supply at $11.08B
The Bond Buyer's 30-day visible supply calendar increased $325.9 million to $11.08 billion on Tuesday. The total is comprised of $5.01 billion of competitive sales and $6.07 billion of negotiated deals.

Secondary market
Municipal bonds were stronger on Tuesday, according to a midday read of the MBIS benchmark scale. Benchmark muni yields fell as much as one basis point in the one- to 30-year maturities.

High-grade munis were stronger as well, with yields calculated on MBIS’ AAA scale falling as much as one basis point all across the curve.

Municipals were weaker on Municipal Market Data’s AAA benchmark scale, which showed the 10-year muni general obligation yield rising as much as one basis point and the 30-year muni maturity yield gaining as much as two basis points.

Treasury bonds were little changed as stocks traded higher.

On Monday, the 10-year muni-to-Treasury ratio was calculated at 85.1% while the 30-year muni-to-Treasury ratio stood at 97.9%, according to MMD. The muni-to-Treasury ratio compares the yield of tax-exempt municipal bonds with the yield of taxable U.S. Treasury with comparable maturities. If the muni/Treasury ratio is above 100%, munis are yielding more than Treasury; if it is below 100%, munis are yielding less.

Previous session's activity
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board reported 40,814 trades on Monday on volume of $9.02 billion.

California, New York and Texas were the states with the most trades, with the Golden State taking 16.558% of the market, the Empire State taking 12.073% and the Lone Star State taking 10.684%.

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.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, click here.
Primary bond market Secondary bond market State of Colorado State of California State of New York State of Texas
MORE FROM BOND BUYER