Industries

In another blow to Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick’s plan to sell Detroit’s half of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, the City Council in Windsor, Ontario, last week instructed its top lawyer to halt negotiations after some Detroit council members said they still have doubts about the deal despite having voted in favor of establishing an operating authority.

In its push to gain federal approval to implement tolls on I-80, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission yesterday announced a proposed $2.5 billion capital plan to update 83% of the Interstate's roadway and replace 60 of its bridges over the next 10 years.

DALLAS - The Texas Public Finance Authority will give investors a chance to grab some of its general obligation debt this week as the agency issues $225 million of bonds for refunding and new money.

The Port of Galveston has secured a $28.1 million loan from the Texas Industry Development Loan Program for improvements that include a channel-deepening project and renovation of aging public docks.

The financial advisory firm Frasca & Associates LLC has added a banker and credit analyst to its team.

New York issuers will dominate the new-issue activity this week as both the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority and the New York City Municipal Water Finance Authority come to the primary market amid an anticipated slate of $7.5 billion, according to Thomson Reuters.

CHICAGO - Flint, Mich.-based McLaren Health Care Corp. will enter the market tomorrow with $204 million of fixed-rate revenue bonds in the first of two series that together will refinance all the system's so-called indexed put bonds as well as a portion of debt taken on with a pair of recent acquisitions.

The Senate is poised to consider legislation that would extend a Texas tolling ban through September 2009. The moratorium extension was added as an amendment to transportation and housing appropriations legislation that cleared the Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has not given up hope on nearly $2.7 billion of capital projects that officials last month proposed delaying until the 2010-2015 capital plan.

The Senate Committee on Appropriations yesterday unanimously approved transportation and housing spending for fiscal 2009, including full funding for the federal highway program plus $8 billion to shore up the ailing highway trust fund.

ATLANTA - North Carolina lawmakers have approved a roughly $22 billion budget for the 2008-09 fiscal year, which includes almost $900 million of borrowing.

CHICAGO - A gaming expansion bill - one of three funding sources for a $34 billion capital budget - failed during a special session of the Illinois House yesterday, one day after Gov. Rod Blagojevich sought to pressure lawmakers to pass the plan by vetoing $1.4 billion in spending from the fiscal 2009 operating budget.

CHICAGO -Fitch Ratings this week revised to negative its outlook on the U.S. health insurance and managed care sector.

CHICAGO - The University of Toledo will enter the market today with roughly $35 million of fixed-rate general receipts bonds in the first of two series that will refund recent notes used to take out all the system's insured variable-rate demand bonds.

The South Carolina Jobs-Economic Development Authority is readying a $19 million deal for the Kershaw County Medical Center.

The Adventist Health System-Sunbelt Obligated Group on Monday won a trio of rating upgrades from Moody’s Investors Service in conjunction with the conversion or addition of letters of credit from SunTrust Bank on three series of bonds.

BRADENTON, Fla. - A Tampa-based real estate broker specializing in the sale of senior housing communities has a new niche: the sale of distressed senior housing financed with tax-exempt bonds.

Fitch Ratings and Standard & Poor’s last week downgraded their long-term ratings on BRCH Corp. Obligated Group, an acute-care hospital with 400 licensed beds in Boca Raton.

The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission last week approved a $5.8 billion, five-year construction program that officials warned will be limited to maintenance and safety work beginning late next year.

New York's Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority, a credit of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, is gearing up to sell $1 billion of revenue bonds tomorrow to help support capital projects on the system's bridges and tunnels.