2015 Deal of the Year: Small Issuer Financing

Who won this year's Deal of the Year award for Small Issuer Financing? The winner will be honored on Thursday, December 3 at the Waldorf-Astoria in Manhattan, and later that night will compete with winners in the seven other categories for the right to be named The Bond Buyer's 2015 Deal of the Year.

VOICE OVER: To save its ageing public housing from obsolescence, the El Paso Housing Authority knew that it could not rely on traditional sources of funding. Declining federal support for maintenance and rehabilitation would leave the authority with a $200 million shortfall over 20 years. Further complicating matters, conventional public housing is not permitted to carry any debt, limiting options to repair or rehabilitate existing properties. The alternative was a public-private partnership that would require the use of tax credits, private activity bonds, and private equity.

In the process, a new condo issuer, the Alameda Public Facilities Corporation would be created to issue $59 million of bonds for the first phase of the rehab work. The transaction marked the largest single issuance of housing tax credits ever approved by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. Pulling the bonds required participants to operate under the guidelines of the 2011 rental assistance demonstration initiative created by Congress and working with the Texas Bond Review Board to combine multiple projects into a single portfolio. The program mapped a new path toward saving public housing for El Paso's neediest population.