Illinois Finance Authority

The prominent Chicago health system's refunding will simplify its debt structure, cut interest rates, and provide longer-term fixed financing.

Final payouts are approaching for $170 million of defaulted BHF bonds with haircuts ranging from less than 10% to more than 50%.

The Illinois-based health system, with a balance sheet helped by its insurance arm, will sell $600 million of AA-minus rated debt over the next month.

Sub-1% 10-year municipals and low ratios may test investor appetite for the asset class but it is hard to ignore the strong fundamentals and substantial fund flows in the backdrop.

The facility and a majority of bondholders agreed to a restructuring that aims to ease repayment problems not solved by the previous bankruptcy in 2016.

Park Place at Elmhurst would restructure and redeem $141 million of bonds issued to exit its 2016 Chapter 11 under a plan pending before a bankruptcy court.

Deep bondholder losses are expected when the bonds issued for five Better Housing Foundation portfolios in and around Chicago emerge from Chapter 11.

The IFA is hoping to capitalize on growing investor interest in green and sustainable bonds.

The proposed combination of the major not-for-profit healthcare players in Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin encountered opposition in Michigan.

The new-issue market saw deals from Houston, the Illinois Finance Authority and the City and County of San Francisco, Calif., hit the screens.