Loop Capital Markets Serves as Senior Bookrunner on City of Atlanta’s $335 million Airport General Revenue Refunding Bonds, Series 2021

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.