New York City priced $950 million of general obligation bonds on March 5, including $650 million of tax-exempt, fixed-rate new money bonds and roughly $50 million of tax-exempt fixed-rate bonds, which will be converted from variable-rate demand bonds.
Yields to maturity on the fixed-rate, tax-exempt bonds ranged from 0.25% in 2016 to 4.35% in 2039, according to a spokesman for city Comptroller Scott Stringer. The city received about $278 million of retail orders for the fixed-rate, tax-exempt bonds during the two-day retail order period that preceded the institutional sale.
New York sold the fixed-rate, tax-exempt bonds through its GO syndicate, led by book-running senior manager Citi.
Bank of America Merrill Lynch, JPMorgan, Jefferies, Morgan Stanley and Siebert Brandford Shank & Co. LLC were co-senior managers.
Also on March 5, the city priced the conversion of $250 million of bonds from VRDBs to step-coupon floating rate notes tied to Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association rates, its second offering of this type. Of the $250 million, $100 million were offered with a three-year step, $50 million were offered with a four-year step, and an additional $100 million were offered with a five-year step.
Yields varied from SIFMA plus 40 basis points on the three-year step-coupon FRNs to SIFMA plus 58 basis points on the five-year step coupon FRNs. Siebert Brandford Shank led the three-year step-coupon, Loop Capital Markets the four-year and Morgan Stanley the five year.
The city expects to price $100 million of tax-exempt VRDBs around March 24, bringing the total sale to $1.05 billion.
Moody's Investors Service rates the GO bonds Aa2. Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor's rate them AA.
