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On December 3, 2008, at a ceremony at the New York Academy
of Sciences, The Bond Buyer, the leading daily,
national public finance newspaper in the United States for
over 100 years, awarded Yuba Levee Financing Authority (the
"Authority"), the small issuer Far West Deal of the Year
award (click here to read the Bond Buyer
article announcing the Deal of the Year winners).
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Jeff Small of Capitol PFG, Yuba County Supervisor
Mary Jane Griego, Yuba County Administrator Robert Bendorf,
and Todd Smith of Southwest Securities accept the Deal of
the Year award at the ceremony in New York.
The award recognizes some of the country's most innovative
municipal bond issuers for transactions that finance projects
including affordable housing, highways, schools, property tax
relief, flood control, street improvements and airports.
The Authority issued revenue bonds in the amount of $78.37
million on September 23, 2008. The bonds provided the
local match required for a $138.5 million grant approved and
provided by the State of California for the completion of the
County's Phase 4 Feather River Setback Levee Improvement
Project (the "Project").
Mary Jane Griego, Robert Bendorf,
Todd Smith and Jeff Small were all smiles after the Awards
Ceremony.
The Project is significant because it is the only large
scale, fully funded flood control project in California's
Central Valley. When complete, the Project will provide
200 year flood protection to a strategically improtant part of
Yuba County. The Project area has a history of
devastating floods that have taken lives and destroyed
property. The Project will allow for conitnued real
estate development and prosperity in the Southern portion of
Yuba County.
The financing structure was designed by Capitol Public
Finance Group, of Sacramento, California, the Authority's
Financial Advisor. The financing received recognition
because it is innovative and reduces risk to the
Authority. The financing was structured in a manner
intended to be repaid from mimpact fees from
development. Annual debt service payments were delayed
until March 1, 2015, in order to allow time for the economy to
rebound and new development to occur. The financing
structure is innovative because the deferred payments required
the issuance of a taxable bond whose sole purpose was to make
payments on itself and a tax-exempt bond issued for project
costs.
Robert Bendorf and Mary
Jane Griego described the levee improvement project and
financing plan during the ceremony.
The financing was underwritten by Southwest Securities, a
subsidiary of SWS Group Inc. (NYSE: SWS). The bonds had
a true interest cost of approximately 5.33%, including both
taxable and tax-exempt bonds. It is the only deal to be
sold this year with a par call on taxable bonds.
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