Sage Memorial Hospital gained The Bond Purchaser’s twenty fourth annual Deal of the 12 months award for its $80 million providing of unrated tax-exempt bonds
Sage Memorial Hospital gained The Bond Purchaser’s twenty fourth annual Deal of the 12 months award for its $80 million providing of unrated tax-exempt bonds that recapitalized development of a substitute hospital, an expanded outpatient clinic and badly wanted workforce housing serving the Navajo neighborhood in Ganado, Arizona.
The undertaking — which was financed by hospital income bonds supplied via conduit issuer Arizona Industrial Growth Authority additionally gained Deal of the 12 months within the Well being Care Financing class — restores close by entry to surgical procedure, dialysis, intensive care, and labor and supply, turning structural limitations on reservation land right into a platform for long-term, community-centered care. Crucially, the staff leveraged Sage’s standing as a tribal contractor to pledge non-traditional income agreements alongside internet affected person revenues, opening a replicable path to marketplace for indigenous well being methods.
“This choice speaks to the center of what these awards rejoice,” stated Mike Scarchilli, Editor in Chief of The Bond Purchaser, at Tuesday’s gala. “It’s not merely the dimensions of a transaction, neither is it novelty for novelty’s sake. It’s the readability of goal, the precision of construction and the braveness to open a door that has too usually been closed. This transaction stood out for reworking entry into outcomes and monetary ingenuity into neighborhood influence.”
The deal represents a significant landmark in furthering Native American healthcare infrastructure as tribal governments face hurdles when issuing munis, together with tax code restrictions, restricted instruments and land possession points. The transaction additionally demonstrates a non-profit healthcare supplier’s skill to leverage nontraditional income sources — enabled by tribal contractor standing — to safe tax-exempt munis.
The Bond Purchaser’s editors and senior reporters thought-about a variety of things when judging entries, together with: creativity, the flexibility to drag a posh transaction collectively below difficult circumstances, the flexibility to function a mannequin for different financings and the general public goal for which a deal’s proceeds had been used. Frequent traits of Deal of the 12 months award-winning transactions embrace:
Offers for brand new issuers, credit created to fulfill a particular or ongoing financing want, or issuers which were considerably remodeled in order that they seem new to traders and performance as a brand new credit score from a portfolio supervisor’s perspective.
“Turnaround tales” from issuers that had been both lengthy absent from the market or unable to achieve market entry.
Offers that set up new sorts of safety, harness beforehand untapped income sources, or open a brand new sector to financing.
Offers that create a brand new kind of financing for a conventional space of presidency, bringing new assets to an space the place different choices had been unavailable due to income or political obstacles.
Refundings or restructurings that both achieved an in any other case unattainable financial savings or indenture change objective for the issuer or use derivatives or different monetary instruments to scale back danger and/or whole debt-service value.
Offers that set a file by way of whole greenback dimension or variety of collaborating issuers or entice important curiosity from non-traditional traders in municipal finance.
Sage Memorial Hospital’s Deal of the 12 months winner “embodies these traits in particularly significant methods,” Scarchilli stated.
“[The deal] delivered everlasting, long-term financing for a mission-critical neighborhood facility,” Scarchilli stated. “It relied on a construction that broadened market entry, even with out exterior rankings; it aligned reimbursement with actual working efficiency whereas thoughtfully incorporating focused assist; and it superior important providers in a spot the place distance and historical past have lengthy imposed limitations. Most significantly, it charts a replicable path for others dealing with comparable challenges.”
The awards ceremony, held Dec. 2 at Guastavino’s in New York Metropolis, additionally included, for the fifteenth 12 months, the presentation of the Freda Johnson Awards for Trailblazing Ladies in Public Finance. This 12 months marks the thirteenth through which the group honored public finance professionals from each the private and non-private sectors with Freda Johnson awards. The 2025 honorees had been Jeanette W. Weldon, government director of the Connecticut Well being and Academic Services Authority, for the general public sector, and Elaine Brennan, president and government director of the general public finance division of Roosevelt & Cross, for the personal sector.
Together with Weldon and Brennan, whose awards had been introduced by Freda Johnson, 12 different honorees from the private and non-private sectors had been acknowledged as Trailblazing Ladies in Public Finance by the Northeast Ladies in Public Finance on the Dec. 2 occasion.
The 2025 public-sector Trailblazers:
Lisa Eisenberg, State of Ohio
Laura Farmer, Virginia Division of Transportation
Meghan Gutekunst, College of California workplace of the president
Jill Jaworski, Metropolis of Chicago
Sherien N. Khella, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
Sanna Wong-Chen, New York Metropolis Workplace of Administration and Funds
The 2025 private-sector Trailblazers:
Julie Burger, Wells Fargo
Pepe Finn, Stern Brothers & Co
Kelly Hutchinson, Katten
Cathy Krawitz, Northwestern Mutual
Linda Vanderperre, Kroll Bond Ranking Company
Nora Wittstruck, S&P International Scores
The opposite 9 finalists for the 2025 Deal of the 12 months:
NORTHEAST REGIONThe Northeast Area winner is the New York Power Finance Growth Company’s $944.15 million power provide income bonds, which pay as you go 30 years of electrical energy for the New York Energy Authority in what was the primary tax-exempt pay as you go electrical energy transaction in New York. The deal created a brand new statewide conduit credit score and supplied a repeatable platform to combine renewables in assist of New York’s local weather objectives.
SOUTHWEST REGIONThe Southwest Area winner is the cities of Dallas and Fort Value, Texas, and Dallas Fort Value Worldwide Airport for its $1.97 billion joint income refunding and enchancment bonds. By pairing lengthy fixed-rate debt with four- and seven-year mandatory-tender bonds, DFW lowered near-term borrowing prices and averted exterior liquidity via a soft-put design.
MIDWEST REGIONThe winner within the Midwest Area is the Columbus Regional Airport Authority’s roughly $1.21 billion issuance of AMT and non-AMT airport income bonds, the inaugural issuance for a $2 billion capital program at John Glenn Columbus Worldwide. The transaction generated $4.11 billion in orders from 88 traders, increasing demand for AMT paper and permitting the authority to advance $175 million of further tasks.
SOUTHEAST REGIONThe winner within the Southeast Area is the Virginia Port Authority for its first port income bond subject since 2016. This $248.7 million financing enabled a first-of-its-kind lease modification at Virginia Worldwide Gateway, which secured a fixed-price choice to buy the terminal in 2065, funded a $335 million upfront hire cost and defeased all excellent port income bonds and gear leases whereas avoiding an 8% ticking price.
FAR WEST REGIONThe Far West Area winner is the Alaska Railroad Company’s $112 million issuance of cruise port income bonds, which financed a brand new terminal and dock on the Port of Seward utilizing a novel risk-transfer method — buying the undertaking with bond proceeds solely after substantial completion, backed by ARRC fairness and a pier utilization settlement with minimal passenger ensures.
GREEN FINANCINGThe Inexperienced Financing winner is the New York Transportation Growth Company’s $1.95 billion inexperienced bond issuance for the JFK Worldwide Airport Terminal 6 redevelopment. The financing advances a high-efficiency terminal program that includes rooftop photo voltaic, absolutely electrical floor assist and stormwater seize and reuse and drew robust multi-segment investor demand that allowed the providing to upsize.
SMALL ISSUER FINANCINGThe Small Issuer Financing winner is the Kerrville Public Utility Board Public Facility Company, which entered the general public markets with its inaugural bond sale to ship a brand new peaking energy plant for the Texas Hill Nation. The financing pairs tax-exempt bonds with a low-interest mortgage from the Texas Power Fund, bringing contemporary capital to a vital, historically hard-to-fund want: native reliability.
INNOVATIVE FINANCINGThe state of Wisconsin’s $454.3 million normal obligation refunding is the Progressive Financing award winner for pioneering the municipal market’s first fixed-spread tender for tax-exempt bonds. By changing the standard fixed-price method, Wisconsin lowered publicity to interest-rate volatility for each issuer and bondholders and established a repeatable mannequin for legal responsibility administration that many issuers can undertake to unlock financial financial savings whereas broadening investor engagement.
PUBLIC-PRIVATE PARTNERSHIP FINANCINGThe winner within the Public-Non-public Partnership class is the Georgia SR 400 Categorical Lanes Mission, which mixed a file issuance of tax-exempt private-activity bonds, the biggest TIFIA mortgage to this point, and a 50-year concession that delivered a $3.8 billion upfront concession price to the state whereas funding 16 miles of dynamically tolled lanes and future bus speedy transit enhancements — harnessing personal capital to speed up supply, scale back public value and enhance mobility and security throughout metro Atlanta.
