Featured Municipal Bond Issue, Week of 12/04/2017: Northwestern Memorial Healthcare – Revenue Bonds – $524 Million
This week’s featured bond comes from the State of Illinois. The Illinois Finance Authority is issuing $524 million in revenue bonds on behalf of Northwestern Memorial Healthcare the week of December 04, 2017. These revenue bonds are being issued as a single, negotiated series. The purpose of these bonds is to finance, reimburse, or otherwise pay all or a portion of the costs of activities related to health facilities, including a replacement hospital facility for Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital. Further purposes include refunding bonds previously issued in 2009, and paying Northwestern Memorial Healthcare Taxable Commercial Paper Notes
Security for the bonds is a loan agreement that Northwestern Memorial Healthcare will make payment when due, as well as an unsecured general obligation of each member of the obligated group. The obligated group includes Northwestern Memorial HealthCare, as well as certain subsidiaries. The chart below highlights in yellow the subsidiaries included as members of the obligated group. They are:
- Northwestern Memorial Hospital (NP)
- Northwestern Lake Forest Hospital (NP)
- Lake Forest Health & Fitness Institute (NP)
- Northwestern Memorial Foundation (NP)
- Northwestern Medical Group (NP)
- CDH-Delnor Health System (NP)
- Central DuPage Physician Group (NP)
- Central DuPage Hospital Association (NP)
- Delnor Community Hospital (NP)
- Marianjoy Rehabilitation Hospital & Clinics, Inc. (NP)
- Rehabilitation Medicine Clinic, Inc. (NP)
- KishHealth System (NP)
- Kishwaukee Community Hospital (NP)
- Valley West Community Hospital (NP)
- Kishwaukee Physician Group, Inc. (NP)
Further details on the purposes, tax-status, and security, as well as other matters pertaining to these Northwestern Memorial Healthcare revenue bonds can be found in the preliminary official statement, available on MuniOS.
Northwestern Memorial Healthcare primarily serves the Chicago-Naperville-Elgin, IL-IN-WI Metropolitan Area. As of October 2017, the Chicago metropolitan area has an unemployment rate of 4.7%, which is 0.6% higher than the national rate for October, and 0.5% lower than at the same time in 2016. The chart below (click to expand) shows the Chicago metropolitan area, State of Illinois, 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 Northwestern Memorial HealthCare & Subsidiaries as of 08/31/2016, compared with the medians for other U.S. Cities 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