MAYOR RILLING ANNOUNCES THE CITY OF NORWALK’S SALE OF $22.0 MILLION IN BONDS TO FINANCE CAPITAL PROJECTS AT A RATE OF 1.88%

Mayor Harry Rilling announced today that the city successfully completed the sale of $22.0 million of general obligation bonds to finance the city’s capital projects. The projects being financed with these bonds include $16.8 million for city capital projects including road reconstruction and paving; $4.1 million for Board of Education capital projects including school construction, district technology and Common Core; and $1.1 million for urban renewal projects.

The method of sale was competitive with bids being accepted electronically via the PARITY on-line bidding service. The True Interest Cost (TIC) for the winning bidder was 1.877389% submitted by Bank of America Merrill Lynch. The city received a total of seven bids, with TICs ranging from 1.877389% to 2.044395%. The serial bonds of the winning bidder provide a yield ranging from 0.62% for maturities in 2018, up to 2.21% for maturities in 2031.

As a point of reference, the city sold $17.0 million in bonds on this date last year, 6/30/2015, and achieved a TIC of 2.579197%. The recent market disruptions have created a global flight to quality which municipal Aaa/AAA rated bonds represent in the market.

Norwalk’s debt remains highly attractive to municipal bond investors due to Norwalk’s superior bond rating and strong reputation in the market. The three major credit rating agencies all re-affirmed their “Triple A” bond ratings of Norwalk earlier this month in advance of today’s sale. The city estimates that selling these bonds with an “AAA” rating rather than a “AA” rating will generate interest savings of approximately $411,000 to Norwalk taxpayers over the life of the issue.