Southwest

An international consortium of investors and project developers plans to issue $272 million of private activity bonds to build toll lanes in one of the Houston area’s most congested corridors.

A plan to reduce Oklahoma’s $1.3 billion budget shortfall would include $500 million of bonds for highway projects under a plan announced by Gov. Mary Fallin.

Three years after entering the Texas market, UMB Bank is expanding its investment banking division with 11 hires from other firms, led by Victor Pucciarelli, former senior vice president for Hilltop Securities.

The Securities Exchange Commission has charged Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton with securities fraud in a case involving a Texas-based technology company. Paxton was already under indictment in Texas for acting as an unregistered financial advisor.

The Conroe Industrial Development Corporation in Texas has paid a penalty and agreed to redeem bonds under the Internal Revenue Service’s voluntary closing agreement program (VCAP) to settle a tax violation relating to bonds it issued in 2008 and refunded in 2012.

UMB Bank N.A., the bond trustee for Texas Pellets, accelerated the outstanding debt on $186.5 million of bonds due to a default at the company owned by German Pellets, which filed for insolvency in February.

As Oklahoma lawmakers sought additional funds to close a $1.3 billion budget gap, Treasurer Ken Miller gave them the bad news that state tax receipts in March were the lowest in four years.

As it delivers growing numbers of commuters through Houston’s congested car culture, the Metropolitan Transit Authority of Harris County will make a side trip to the municipal market with $136 million of refunding bonds.

After four months of decline, local sales tax revenues increased 2.6% in March compared to the same month last year, state Comptroller Glenn Hegar said.

The University of Texas System will seek savings with a $134 million refunding of revenue bonds.