Featured Municipal Bond in the Market, Week of 07/17/2017: Virginia College Building Authority Educational Facilities Revenue Bonds – $599 Million
This week’s featured bond comes from the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Virginia College Building Authority is issuing educational facilities revenue bonds in the amount of $599 million the week of July 17, 2017. These Virginia revenue bonds consist of two series; Series 2017C are $498 million in tax-exempt revenue bonds, while Series 2017D are $101 million in federally-taxable revenue bonds. The purpose of both series is to finance certain capital projects at public institutions of higher education in the Commonwealth.
Security for the bonds consist of payments from funds anticipated to be appropriated by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia. No faith and credit nor taxing power of the Commonwealth or any political subdivision is pledged. Further details on the purposes, security, tax status, and other matters pertaining to these revenue bonds can be found in the preliminary official statement, provided by MuniOS.
As of May 2017, the Commonwealth of Virginia has an unemployment rate of 4.1%, which is 0.2% lower than the national rate for May, and 1.7% lower than at the same time in 2016. The chart below shows the changes in the Commonwealth of Virginia and U.S. unemployment rates for the past ten years. MuniNet provides this data and more, easily accessible, for all 50 states and each Metropolitan Statistical Area in the country, in our Employment Database.
Provided at left is a quick snapshot of financial characteristics of the Commonwealth of Virginia, compared with the median for U.S. States, as of 06/30/2016, courtesy of Merritt Research Services, LLC. The financials of the Commonwealth are used, due to the security on the bonds consisting of funds anticipated to be appropriated by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth. Merritt has many of the sector medians publicly available and regularly updated on their Benchmark Central page. (Merritt believes the data to be reliable but does not make any representations as to its accuracy or completeness). In addition to the Merritt information related to the featured bond, more information can be found on our municipal bond calendar, city, state, and county pages, and our employment database.
These facts and numbers are for informational purposes, and should not be considered an official disclosure for potential investors. Investors should consult the official statement. None of the information provided should be construed as a recommendation by MuniNet Guide, MuniNet LLC, Merritt Research Services LLC, or any of their employees. Information and analysis is for informational purposes only.