[Archived] City of Alexandria Sells Refunding Bonds Saving $1 Million

City Press Release


	City of Alexandria, Virginia Office of the City Manager Alexandria City Hall 301 King Street, Suite 3500 Alexandria, Virginia 22314-3211 www.alexandriava.gov Telephone: 703.838.4300 Fax : 703.838.6343

For Immediate Release
October 7, 2004
PIO 241-04/bg

City of Alexandria Sells Refunding Bonds
Saving $1 Million

The City of Alexandria competitively sold $32.5 million in refunding bonds on Oct. 5, in order to refinance a portion of the City’s callable, existing debt which bears the highest interest costs in the City’s debt portfolio. With this refunding, the City will save some $1.3 million, which equates to a present value savings of about $1 million (i.e., in today’s dollars). This equates to a 3.3% savings.

The True Interest Cost of the winning bid was 3.843%, with BB&T Capital Markets submitting the winning bid. Its partner syndicate members were Morgan Keegan & Co., Inc. and The Advest Group, Inc. As of early this week, bonds remained available for public purchase through the members of this winning bond syndicate.

The bidding was competitive, with six other firms also submitting bids, and with only 0.018% separating the high bidder from the low bidder. This indicated that the winning bid was a reflection of the market today, as well as indicating a strong desire to own City bonds by the seven bidding firms. This in part reflects the City’s strong AAA/Aaa credit characteristics. Both Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s recently reaffirmed Alexandria’s top AAA/Aaa bond ratings. Alexandria remains as one of only 36 cities and towns and 30 counties in the United States with perfect bond ratings from the nation’s two leading municipal credit rating agencies.

The issuing of the Preliminary Official Statement and the bidding itself were conducted in real time on-line via the Internet, which has been the City’s practice since its 2000 bond sale. The City was the first local government in Virginia to use on-line bidding. It is now considered the general practice in the municipal bond industry.