Featured Municipal Bond Issue, Week of 08/21/2017: South Dakota Health and Education Facilities Authority for Regional Health – Revenue Bonds – $214 Million
This week’s featured bond comes from the State of South Dakota. The South Dakota Health and Education Facilities Authority is issuing revenue bonds in the amount of $214 million for Regional Health, the week of August 21, 2017. These Regional Health revenue bonds are being issued as a single, negotiated, tax-exempt series. The bonds are being issued to i) refund all or a portion of Refunded Bonds series issued in 2010 and 2011, and ii) pay or reimburse costs of the ‘Project’. The ‘Project’ includes, but is not limited to:
- Construction of a three-story, approximately 760 space parking structure and a two-story, approximately 786 space parking structure
- Construction and equipping of an approximately 81,000 square foot, four-story hospital office building for physician office space
- Construction and equipping of an approximately 290,000 square foot, four-story patient bed tower, including a new emergency unit, an on-roof helipad, and new entrance lobby.
Security for the bonds is a special and limited obligation of the Authority, to be paid solely from payments from members of the Obligated Group, Regional Health. The membership of the Obligated Group, comprising the Regional Health System, is charted below:
Further details on the purposes, tax-status, and security, as well as other matters pertaining to these Regional Health revenue bonds can be found in the preliminary official statement, provided by MuniOS.
Regional Health primarily serves locations throughout western and southwestern South Dakota. As of June 2017, South Dakota has an unemployment rate of 3.0%, which is 1.3% lower than the national rate for June, and 0.2% higher than at the same time in 2016. The chart below (click to expand) shows the changes in the State of South Dakota 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 (click to expand) is a quick snapshot of financial characteristics of Regional Health Inc. as of 6/30/2016, compared with the medians for other health systems for 2015-2016, courtesy of Merritt Research Services, LLC. 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.
by Jeffrey L Garceau