Bloomberg Information
Chicago has chosen its new senior supervisor and co-manager swimming pools to underwrite future bond offers, about 5 months after it launched its request for {qualifications}.
“We had been actually excited to have 45 respondents,” mentioned Steven Mahr, assistant commissioner and debt supervisor for town’s finance division.
“That was typically in keeping with the variety of responses that town had obtained after we went by this course of about 4 years in the past,” Mahr added.
With the method now full, town can have a few third of the respondents in its senior supervisor pool, and a few third of the respondents within the co-manager pool. The remaining third of respondents weren’t assigned to both pool. Mahr declined to call any of the companies chosen.
“We selected companies that we predict meet a number of the highest requirements within the municipal bond underwriting enterprise,” he mentioned. “Numerous the companies that had been chosen as a part of the senior supervisor pool are within the senior supervisor pool for different massive issuers throughout the nation; the companies which are within the co-manager pool oftentimes are within the co-manager pool for big cities and states throughout the nation.”
The pool consists of minority-, women- and veteran-owned companies, Mahr mentioned. There may be additionally a geographical combine; town wished companies with the aptitude to deal with massive and sophisticated transactions, so it drew from quite a lot of kinds of companies.
“One of many issues that we discover priceless is when companies give us concepts primarily based off transactions that they’ve performed from throughout the nation,” Mahr mentioned. “So a small agency and even a big agency positioned right here in Chicago has a fantastic sense of a number of the challenges and alternatives that now we have right here regionally. They perceive the state regulation and a number of the mechanics of our transactions.
“Alternatively, a number of the bigger companies from throughout the nation have these case research and concepts from a transaction in New York or California or Florida that we then oftentimes make use of on our personal transaction,” he mentioned.
“We had a fairly strong course of right here on the metropolis for analyzing the responses,” Mahr mentioned. Town’s two unbiased registered municipal advisors, PFM and RSI Group, compiled intensive summaries of the responses. However the metropolis — particularly, the CFO’s workplace — did nearly all of the evaluation, Mahr mentioned.
“We had about 10 group members analyze the responses, and we’re actually happy with the method and the period of time and a spotlight that we put into this,” he mentioned. “We wished to take our time within the analysis of the responses, and we did simply that.”
Town has offers for Halfway Airport and O’Hare Airport developing this month and later this 12 months, respectively. The exact timing is but to be decided, Mahr mentioned. There will likely be no less than one massive transaction, and possibly two separate transactions, for O’Hare.
“We’ve got at the moment almost yearly alternatives to refinance bonds,” Mahr mentioned. “This 12 months we obtained alternatives to refinance bonds at each O’Hare and Halfway. For each the O’Hare and Halfway transactions, we’re additionally anticipating to challenge some new cash. That’s the piece that’s but to be decided.”
Ranking company stories have put the Halfway transaction at round $400 million, and the O’Hare deal later this 12 months at round $1.6 billion of latest cash debt.
On Friday town posted a discover to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s EMMA disclosure web site
