On January 3, 2022, Loop Capital Markets acted as a co-manager on a two-tranche, $2 billion senior unsecured fixed/floating rate notes offering for Caterpillar Financial Services Corporation. The bonds are rated A2/A/A across 2- and 5-year tranches.
Use of proceeds are earmarked for general corporate purposes.
On December 9, 2021, Loop Capital Markets served as the Senior Manager for the Oregon Health and Science University’s (the “OHSU”) $91.960 million Revenue Bonds, Series 2021B (Tax-Exempt Long-Term Bonds) (the “Bonds”). The Bonds were rated Aa3 (Stable) / AA- (Stable) / AA- (Stable) by Moody’s, S&P and Fitch, respectively.
Bond proceeds were used to (i) redeem the remaining portion of the Series 2016A Bonds, without premium, plus interest accrued thereon, if any, to the redemption date, (ii) purchase any 2019B Bonds tendered for cash pursuant to the Offer to Tender or Exchange Certain Outstanding Bonds and (iii) finance and refinance the acquisition of clinical sites or other facilities currently leased by OHSU. The Bonds have a nominal maturity of 2046 and consist of hard put bonds including $45.990 million with a 8-year mandatory tender date and a yield of 1.260% and $45.970 million with a 10-year mandatory tender date and a yield of 1.420%. The Bonds were structured with 5% coupons with a 3-month optional redemption prior to the mandatory tender date.
Throughout the pre-marketing process, the Firm provided OHSU with investor feedback from almost 40 accounts. Ultimately, a diverse pool of 20 investors participated in the transaction consisting of Tier 1 and Tier 2 accounts including a municipal bond fund designed especially for Oregon residents. Priority orders totaled $382.495 million with 4.2x oversubscription. Given strong subscription levels, the Firm was able to tighten spreads by 4 bps for the 8-year term and 2 bps for the 10-year term, respectively. The Series 2021B Bonds were issued in conjunction with the $338.380 million Series 2021A Fixed-Rate Bonds, $11.585 million Series 2021C Put Bond Exchange and $56.495 million Series 2022A Forward Delivery Bank Loan.
From December 7-9, 2021, Loop Capital Markets priced $666 million of City of Chicago (“City”) General Obligation (“GO”) Bonds, Series 2021A and Series 2021B (Exchange), and $1 billion Sales Tax Securitization Corporation (“STSC”) Second Lien Sales Tax Securitization Bonds, Series 2021A and Taxable Series 2021B.
Loop Capital Markets served as dealer-manager for the City’s tender or exchange of select GO and Motor Fuel Tax (“MFT”) Bonds. Ultimately, investors tendered $665 million of GO/MFT Bonds, and exchanged $210 million of GO Bonds, which amounted to more than 20% of the candidates. This represented one of the largest tender and exchange conducted in the municipal market to-date.
The Firm worked with the City and its financial advisors to craft the rating agency presentation resulting in the removal of negative outlooks across these credits. Ultimately, the GO lien was rated BBB+ (Stable)/BBB- (Stable)/A (Stable) (S/F/K), and the STSC Second Lien was rated AA- (Stable)/AA- (Stable)/AA+ (Stable) (S/F/K). An investor presentation for each financing generated 57 investor views for the GO Bonds and 75 investor views for the STSC Bonds. Loop Capital Markets organized a live virtual investor roadshow attended by 27 investors supplemented by 12 one-on-one investor calls with key accounts. 73 unique investors participated in the transaction including more than $200 million of orders on behalf of European insurance companies.
These financings generated upfront debt service savings for the City to create budgetary relief of $232 million in fiscal year 2021 with no out-year debt service dissavings. The financing achieved All-In TIC of 2.748%. In support of these financings, the Firm underwrote $82 million of unsold balances of the transactions.
On December 2, 2021, The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority (the “Tollway”) sold the $700 million Toll Highway Senior Revenue Bonds, 2021 Series A (the “Series 2021A Bonds” or the “Bonds”) with Loop Capital Markets serving as bookrunning senior manager. The Bonds were rated Aa3 (Stable) / AA- (Stable) / AA- (Stable) by Moody’s, S&P and Fitch, respectively.
The Bonds were issued to (i) finance the costs of capital improvements to be made to the Tollway System as part of the Move Illinois Program, (ii) make a deposit to the Debt Reserve Account and (iii) pay costs of issuance in connection with the Series 2021A Bonds. The Tollway ultimately upsized the transaction from $600 million to $700 million. The Bonds were a tax-exempt financing with a final maturity of 2046 comprising of both serial and term bonds with 4% and 5% coupons and a 10-year par call.
Immediately following the release of the preliminary official statement, the Firm’s salesforce actively began pre-marketing and contacted a broad range of prospective accounts. The Firm developed an investor roadshow in conjunction with the Tollway that was viewed by 29 unique investors of which five accounts held one-on-one calls with the Tollway. Priority orders totaled $2.1 billion with 3.0x oversubscription. The transaction was primarily sponsored by bond funds followed by proprietary/trading accounts and separately managed accounts. Strong subscription levels resulted in spreads to tighten between 1 and 4 basis points between pre-pricing and repricing/final pricing. The transaction had an All-In TIC of 3.016%.
On November 17, 2021, Loop Capital Markets served as Senior Manager for The County of Cook, Illinois (the “County”) $190.575 million General Obligation Refunding Bonds, Series 2021B, and $57.525 million Taxable General Obligation Refunding Bonds, Series 2021C. The Bonds were rated A2 (Stable) by Moody’s, A+ (Stable) by S&P and AA- (Stable) by Fitch. Fitch upgraded the County’s rating from A+ to AA-. Bond proceeds were issued to (i) refund all of the County’s outstanding General Obligation Refunding Bonds, Series 2011A and Taxable General Obligation Refunding Bonds, Series 2011B for debt service savings and (ii) pay certain costs of issuance.
Loop Capital Markets worked with the County and its financial advisors to develop an electronic investor roadshow posted concurrently with the preliminary official statement which was viewed by 31 investors. In addition, the Firm hosted an investor luncheon attended by nine investors and scheduled three one-on-one meetings with targeted accounts. Due to the Firm’s strong pre-marketing efforts, the transaction was well oversubscribed. The Firm was able to tighten the Series 2021B Bonds by 10 to 12 basis points from pre-pricing to final pricing and the Series 2021C Bonds by five basis points from launch to coupon set. The County was able to generate $42.830 million of net present value savings or 16.0% of the refunded par amount with an All-In TIC of 1.224%.
On November 2, 2021, Loop Capital Markets served as the Senior Manager for the University of Colorado’s $125 million Enterprise Revenue Refunding Bonds, Series 2021C-3AB (Green Bonds) rated Aa1 (Stable) by Moody’s and AA+ (Stable) by S&P. Proceeds of the Bonds were used to current refund the University’s Enterprise Revenue Bonds, Series 2020AB (Variable Rate Demand Bonds). This transaction was designated as Green Bonds given that the refunded VRDBs originally financed facilities certified as LEED Gold. The Bonds have a nominal maturity of 2051 with 4-year and 5-year hard puts to take advantage of the slope of the tax-exempt yield curve. The Bonds were structured with 2% coupons to provide a low interest cost to the University and no optional redemption prior to the mandatory tender date. The hard put structure was selected over a soft put given the University’s cash balance in October (timing of mandatory tender) and back-up line of credit.
Loop Capital Markets’ banking team compiled an investor analysis that identified 11 targeted underrepresented investors for the University’s Put Bonds with 4 of these investors having participated in the transaction. The transaction was primarily sponsored by Bond Funds and SMAs with 31 accounts participating in total. Loop Capital Markets generated $980 million in priority orders resulting in 7.8x oversubscription. As a result, the Firm was able to tighten spreads by 6 bps between pre-pricing and re-pricing. Loop Capital Markets crafted a designation policy that prioritized ESG orders resulting in orders from 9 self-identified ESG investors.
On August 10, 2021, Loop Capital Markets acted as a co-manager on a two-tranche €900 million senior unsecured bond offering for Becton Dickinson & Co. The bonds are rated Baa3/BBB/BBB- across 2- and 4-year tranches.
Use of proceeds are earmarked for Tender Offers and general corporate purposes, including the retirement of debt.
On October 5, 2021, Loop Capital Markets served as the Book Running Senior Manager for Hamilton County’s (”County”) $46.290 million Sales Tax Refunding Bonds, Series 2021A. The Bonds were rated Aa3/AA- by Moody’s and S&P, respectively. The County’s Sales Tax Bonds were upgraded by Moody’s to Aa3 from A1 as part of the financing based on strong debt service coverage levels.
The Bonds were a tax-exempt current refunding with a final maturity of 2032. The Bonds were originally issued to finance the construction of the Paul Brown Stadium (home of the Cincinnati Bengals) and the Great American Ballpark (home of the Cincinnati Reds). Throughout the pre-marketing process, the Firm provided the County investor feedback, including investors expected to place orders and the rationale from non-participating accounts. In addition, the Firm compiled an investor analysis that helped identify and target 16 underrepresented investors for the County’s Sales Tax bonds. Five of the 16 targeted investors ultimately participated in the transaction.
The Bonds received robust investor demand as over 25 investors participated in the transaction, including separately managed accounts, bond funds and money managers. Orders totaled $437.61 million and the Bonds were 9.4x oversubscribed. Because of strong subscription levels, the Firm was able to tighten pricing levels up to 9 basis points depending on maturity. The refunding generated NPV savings of $15.900 million or 26.634% of refunded par with an All-In TIC of 1.365%.
On September 14, 2021, Loop Capital Markets successfully priced the City of Atlanta’s (the “City”) Airport General Revenue Refunding Bonds, Series 2021A (Non-AMT), 2021B (Non-AMT), and 2021C (AMT). The Bonds were rated Aa3 (Stable) and AA- (Stable) by Moody’s and Fitch, respectively, despite the fluctuating performance of the airline industry. Proceeds of the Series 2021ABC Bonds will be used to refund the City’s outstanding Series 2012ABC Bonds. The Bonds consisted of three tranches: $44.305 million Series 2021A, $129.985 million Series 2021B and $161.580 million Series 2021C and were structured with a 10-year par call (July 1, 2031), final maturity of 2042 and 5%, 4% and 1.5% coupons.
Together with the Financial Advisors, Loop crafted an extensive investor and targeted 53 views of the accounts that viewed. Irrespective of substantial competition in the market ($2B California GO; $630M NYC Water; $195M LIPA; $400M Illinois GO), Loop Capital was able to build a successful book of business and attract 20 repeat buyers (holders of the refunded bonds) as well as 31 new investors that were not current holders of the City’s airport debt. While MMD remained stable, total adjusted spreads from premarketing to repricing were up to 7 bps for Non-AMT maturities and up to 13 bps for AMT maturities. Pricing spreads on the 5% and 4% callable bonds, with a few exceptions, were the tightest that the City has achieved for a GARB transaction since 2000. In particular, the 4.00% AMT coupon bonds in years 17-21 were heavily oversubscribed and sold at a final spread of only 16-19 bps over non-AMT bonds. Ultimately, the City achieved $118 million in NPV savings, or 28.7% of refunded par ($135 million of cashflow savings) with a True-Interest Cost of 2.22%. This was $27 million more in NPV savings compared to the initial refunding analysis provided in November 2020.
On August 11, 2021, Loop Capital Markets served as a co-manager on a $101.55 million (IPO) for NewLake Capital Partners.
Use of proceeds are earmarked for the NewLake Capital Partners operating partnership in exchange for OP units, and the operating partner will acquire target assets in a manner consistent with the company’s investment strategy.
