City of Baltimore, MD
$663,780,000 | City of Baltimore, MD | Water and Wastewater Bonds
In November 2020, Mr. Redd served as lead banker for UBS Financial Services Inc. ( “ UBS “ ) on a Senior Managed financing for the City of Baltimore. Specifically, the City issued $663.780 million of Water and Wastewater bonds consisting of - $107.375 million Project Revenue Bonds (Water Projects) Series 2020A Tax-exempt, $301.475 million Refunding Revenue Bonds (Water Projects) Series 2020B Taxable, and $254 million Refunding Revenue Bonds (Wastewater Projects) Series 2020A Taxable.
In light of the growing financial pressures from the global pandemic, the City’s Water Utility faced rapidly declining debt service coverage ratios. As such, the transaction aimed to ameliorate such concerns and provide the City much needed financial flexibility/relief. Based on the resulting financial projections ( pro-forma ) post transaction, the City’s Water credit was upgraded from Aa3 to Aa2 by Moody’s. The transaction marked the largest combined Water and Wastewater financing for the City to date as well the first taxable transaction for both credits.
The refunding produced total net present value (NPV) savings of $43.1 million and $41.9 million for the City’s Water and Wastewater credits, totaling $85 million in NPV savings (or approximately 17.13% of refunded par). These savings allowed the City to delay scheduled rate increases in both the Water and Wastewater Utilities until Fiscal Year 2022.