Southwest

The University of Utah won a Standard & Poor’s upgrade to AA-plus en route to the bond market with $76 million of bonds.

Montgomery County, Texas, officials estimate that investors' flight to quality during a severe downturn in the equities and commodities markets helped reduce interest costs on a $112 million bond deal by nearly $27 million.

Texas school bond volume doubled to $2.2 billion in January compared to the same month last year.

A continuing decline in oil prices will strain the budgets of five producing states to varying degrees, according to Standard & Poor's.

A hungry primary market gets a $250 million taste of top-rated Texas variable-rate debt from the Veterans Land Board.

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson wants to raise state transportation funding by $750 million over 10 years without raising taxes.

The law firm Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe will include a public finance team as part of its new Houston law offices that will hire 20 lawyers from other firms.

Former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who was co-namesake of the Bracewell & Giuliani, is leaving the Houston-based law firm for Greenberg Traurig.

Oklahoma's 3% mid-year cuts to school districts are credit negative because they hinder the districts from paying for budgeted expenditures for the remainder of the school year, according to Moody's Investors Service.

The “Great Financial Crisis” continues to haunt the world’s economy because government failed to repair a damaged system and prosecute fraud, says University of Texas economist James K. Galbraith, who speaks next month at a Bond Buyer event in Austin.