Economy

The need for New York's MTA to borrow up to $4.8 billion using short-term recovery notes for Hurricane Sandy costs is a credit negative, according to Moody's.

Transportation experts and lobbyists believe anointed House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman Bill Shuster will make financing issue a bigger focus than the man he will replace.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is scheduled to sell $595 million of consolidated bonds in two series on Wednesday. Proceeds will finance capital expenditures for the authority's tunnels, bridges, and PATH train.

The Texas Transportation Commission is pricing its largest general obligation bond issue of the year Tuesday, with $839.3 million of tax-exempt debt selling through negotiation and $100 million of taxable bonds offered competitively.

Moody’s Investors Service revised the outlook on Baa1-rated Fletcher Allen Health Care to positive from stable, affecting $330 million of outstanding debt.

Fitch Ratings affirmed its BBB rating on Peninsula United Methodist Homes Inc., and upgraded the outlook to positive from stable.

The toll of Hurricane Sandy on the Eastern Seaboard's transportation infrastructure underscores the need to fund both annual maintenance and "generational" infrastructure projects, said John Porcari of the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Alabama prices $340 million of new Garvee bonds Wednesday as part of Gov. Robert Bentley's Alabama Transportation Rehabilitation and Improvement Program.

West Penn Allegheny Health System revealed that the Securities and Exchange Commission may sue it over accounting discrepancies.

Spending on transportation infrastructure construction is likely to grow a modest 3% next year to a total of $130.3 billion, according to the American Road and Transportation Builders Association's annual forecast.

The ability to fast-track stalled projects as well as create jobs is making the design-build-finance model attractive to states, panelists said at The Bond Buyer's annual transportation and P3 conference.

In the week's largest deal, the New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund will sell $1.2 billion of bonds to finance various transportation projects in the state.

Panelists at the Bond Buyer's annual transportation and P3 conference said the newly expanded TIFIA program, combined with private activity bonds and yield-hungry investors are powerful tools for governments embarking on public-private transportation projects.

Los Angeles World Airports' success in managing a multi-billion dollar expansion project is likely to be parlayed into a receptive environment for its $269 million bond pricing next Wednesday.

Moody's has assigned an issuer credit rating of Baa1 to Presence Health, the new health care system created by the merger late last year of Resurrection Health Care and Provena Health.

The federal bankruptcy court in Chicago has signed off on a suburban Chicago retirement community's reorganization plan that relies on a $90 million bond issue to restructure its $116 million 2006 issue.

Federal cuts to physician reimbursement in the Medicare program would have a negative effect on U.S. nonprofit hospitals, Fitch Ratings says.

Battered by Hurricane Sandy, New York's Metropolitan Transportation Authority may be on the hook for an estimated $950 million, even after reimbursements.

Miami sells $50 million of revenue bonds next week to qualified investors to refinance a loan used to pay a portion of building underwater tunnels to the Port of Miami.

President Obama should seek federally-subsidized infrastructure bonds, a national infrastructure bank, and standardization of state tolling authority to help accomplish his infrastructure investment goals, the Center for American Progress said in a new report.