Refunding bonds

The White House and a bipartisan cadre of lawmakers appear committed to getting infrastructure, including top muni market lobbying goals, achieved.

“Our net present value savings were $191.5 million or a record-setting 29%," said North Texas Tollway Authority Chief Financial Officer Horatio Porter.

With federal aid rolling out, the municipal credit picture is improving and issuers are coming to market at a faster clip. An infrastructure package could push issuance levels even higher.

Public finance groups hope that the Biden administration will show the same support for tax-exempt bonds that House Democrats do.

The three-pronged Local Infrastructure Financing Tools Act was introduced Friday by Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala.

Forward delivery sales, a replacement for tax-exempt advance refundings, could grow in 2021.

The authority appears ready to take advantage of market conditions following a successful December refunding.

The current prohibition against tax-exempt advance refunding was used as a minor pay-for in the GOP’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act that cut personal and corporate tax rates.

The first quarter of 2021 concludes with $102.1 billion, slightly higher than the $95.3 billion that the market saw in the COVID-ravaged first quarter of 2020.

The savings from the March 19 bond sale will be dedicated to Guam’s tourism recovery efforts as well as debt service.

The public notice filed on EMMA is the first report by any issuer in calendar 2021 of any type of IRS audit communication.

Planning will require favorable tax policies, sophisticated capital programing, bond financing, and pioneering public-private partnerships. It also requires a cohesive national, bipartisan infrastructure plan as a foundation to begin addressing this impending infrastructure crisis.

Although all of the proposals have some bipartisan support in Congress, the extent of that support remains unclear.

From the use of taxables to forward deliveries, refunding deals drove an overall 15.8% hike in Midwest bond volume that exceeded the national average.

Municipal issuers in the Southwest sold $93.5 billion of debt in 2020, a year in which the coronavirus upended the way bond business is done.

Bills to expand the use of tax-advantaged bonds that are being reintroduced in the new Congress have favorable odds for being signed into law this year.

Taxable deals and refinancings fueled the 2020 volume spike as issuers adjusted to the coronavirus. The pandemic still looms over 2021.

BATA brings a refunding deal to market next week, buoyed by a financial position that stood up to the stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The deal was the largest in the authority’s history, with the lowest ever interest rate for one of its sales and netting a record-breaking $112 million in interest cost savings.

The city, struggling amid a pandemic-induced deficit, received a negative outlook from Kroll Bond Rating Agency ahead of the deal.