SRP Announces $436M New Money Bond Sale
S&P Boosts SRP’s Rating to AA+ for Enterprise, Financial Strength
Boosted by an improved ‘AA+’ rating by Standard & Poor’s Financial Services, Salt River Project will be coming to market next week with a sale of more than $436 million of highly rated, 2019 Series A public power revenue bonds.
The sale is subject to approval by the SRP Board and ratification by the SRP Council.
SRP intends to price approximately $436,180,000 of the new money revenue bonds the week of Oct. 21, subject to market conditions, according to Associate General Manager and Chief Financial Executive Aidan McSheffrey. The sale is expected to close Nov. 6, he said.
Standard & Poor’s decision last week to raise its rating on the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District’s $3.9 billion of senior-lien debt from ‘AA’ to ‘AA+’ cited SRP’s “very strong enterprise profile and an extremely strong financial profile” in an Oct. 11 rating report by S&P. SRP is also rated ‘Aa1’ by Moody’s Investors Services.
McSheffrey said proceeds of the tax-exempt, fixed-rate Electric System Revenue Bonds will be used to finance capital improvements to the SRP electric system pursuant to the Salt River Project Agricultural Improvement and Power District’s Capital Improvement Program and to pay costs of issuing the bonds.
The sale will be senior managed by J.P. Morgan, with Goldman Sachs & Co., Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley as co-managers. PFM will act as financial adviser and Chiesa Shahinian & Giantomasi as bond counsel.
The bond sale will be the first long-term debt issuance by SRP since October 2017, when it sold about $735 million of tax-exempt, fixed-rate revenue bonds to refund outstanding 2009 revenue bonds and to finance capital improvements of the district’s electric system.
SRP is a community-based, not-for-profit public power utility and the largest provider of electricity in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area, serving more than 1 million customers. SRP is also the metropolitan area’s largest supplier of water, delivering about 800,000 acre-feet annually to municipal, urban and agricultural water users.