New York City Municipal Water Agency Sets $502M

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The New York City Municipal Water Finance Authority intends to sell $502.2 million of fiscal 2012 Series EE second resolution, fixed-rate, tax-exempt bonds on Tuesday.

M.R. Beal & Co. is book-running senior manager for a $425 million refunding, with the balance, roughly $77 million, in new money. Proceeds will benefit capital projects.

Barclays Capital, Jefferies & Co., Morgan Keegan & Co., and Ramirez & Co. will serve as co-senior managers. Lamont Financial Services Corp. is the financial advisor. A one-day retail order period was held Monday.

Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s assign AA-plus ratings to the bonds, while Moody’s Investors Service rates them Aa2. Bond counsel is Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP. Nixon Peabody LLP is representing the underwriters.

The authority provides more than one billion gallons of water to nine million customers daily, according to the New York State Department of Environmental Protection. Of these customers, 8.2 million are in New York City and the rest are in Westchester, Putnam, Orange and Ulster counties.

On Jan. 24, the authority sold $400 million of fiscal 2012, Series CC water and sewer second general resolution revenue bonds.

Two weeks ago, the city sold $1.03 billion of tax-exempt refunding general obligation bonds, an increase of more than $200 million from the expected $800 million. According to Comptroller John Liu, the transaction generated more than $150 million of budget savings for the city.

On Thursday, after a one-day retail order period, the New York State Thruway Authority is scheduled to sell $243.3 million of fixed-rate, tax-exempt Series 2012A local highway and bridge service contract refunding bonds through negotiated bid.

The authority expects $22 million in present value savings through the refinancing, according to a press officer. It has previously issued $5.7 billion of bonds under this program, of which $1.1 billion is outstanding. Standard & Poor’s and Fitch each rate the bonds under this program AA-minus. The bonds will mature from 2013 to 2016. They are all serial bonds and will not be callable.

Wells Fargo Securities is lead manager. Holland & Knight LLP is bond counsel. Public Resources Advisory Group and Frasca & Associates LLC are financial advisors to the authority, while William J. Estes is general counsel. Nixon Peabody is representing the underwriters.

Later in March, the authority is scheduled to sell $795 million of fixed-rate, tax-exempt dedicated highway and bridge trust fund bonds by negotiated bid. The sale will consist of $550 million of new-money bonds and the rest refunding.

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