Wall Street is licking its chops over a pair of Connecticut’s pending blue-chip debt offerings, authorities say.
On Wednesday, investors took advantage of a special order period to order $132.7 million of an estimated $575 million offering of general obligation (GO) conversion bonds, the state treasurer’s office said Thursday.
The rest of the offering officially went on sale Thursday to institutional investors, Treasurer Denise L. Nappier said. She said retail orders were ahead of this past summer’s sale of $123.5 million in UConn 2000 bonds.
A key factor for the demand, Nappier said, is that Wall Street’s major credit/debt-rating agencies – Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s, Fitch Ratings, and Kroll Bond Ratings – all gave Connecticut’s GO debt some of their highest safety-risk ratings.
Nappier and state budget chief Ben Barnes personally pleaded Connecticut’s fiscal outlook to ratings agencies last week, she said.
Later this month, Connecticut will hold a second bond sale for approximately $325 million of GO refunding notes to refinance a portion of its outstanding economic recovery notes 2009 Series A by extending the final maturity from 2016 to 2018.
That sale is due to be priced on Oct. 23 and close one day later.
Ramirez & Co. is the senior manager on the conversion bonds. Barclays is the sole underwriter on the second sale.
Law firms Day Pitney LLP and Finn Dixon & Herling LLP are disclosure counsel for the GO sales, with Robinson & Cole LLP and Soeder & Associates LLC serving as tax counsel.
Acacia Financial Group Inc. and A.C. Advisory are financial advisors for both sales.
