News
THE CITY OF NEW YORK ANNOUNCES SUCCESSFUL SALE OF $900 MILLION OF TAX-EXEMPT GENERAL OBLIGATION REFUNDING BONDS
The City of New York (“the City”) announced the successful sale of approximately $900 million of General Obligation Refunding Bonds.
During a two-day retail order period for the bonds, the City received $425 million of retail orders, of which approximately $422 million was usable.
Given strong investor demand and favorable market conditions, the refunding was upsized by approximately $100 million from the original transaction size of $800 million to $900 million.
During the institutional order period, the City received $816 million of priority orders, representing 1.7x the bonds offered for sale to institutional investors. Yields were further reduced by 2 basis points for the 2018, 2019 and 2020 maturities. Final stated yields ranged from 0.89% in 2018 for a 4% coupon bond to 2.29% in 2028 for a 5% coupon bond.
The refunding bonds were sold via negotiated sale by the City’s underwriting syndicate led by book- running senior manager BofA Merrill Lynch, with Citigroup, Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Jefferies, J.P. Morgan, Loop Capital Markets, Ramirez & Co., Inc., RBC Capital Markets and Siebert Cisneros Shank & Co., L.L.C. serving as co-senior managers.
The City also reoffered $60 million of taxable fixed rate bonds via competitive bid. The taxable bonds, maturing in 2019 through 2021, attracted 10 bidders, with Morgan Stanley winning at a true interest cost of 1.798%.