NY/NY Port Authority draws ZERO bids for taxable bond offering

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Wed Dec 03, 2008 11:05 pm

Hmm...and the bond markets continue to be absolutely whacked out:

Dec. 3 (Bloomberg) -- The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey attracted no bids from investment banks interested in underwriting a $300 million taxable note offering in another sign that the seizure in credit markets persists.

The three-year notes, backed by revenue from the bi-state agency that operates airports, river crossings and transit in the New York City area, were placed up for competitive sale this morning. The deal carried the highest short-term ratings from Moody’s Investors Service, Standard & Poor’s and Fitch Ratings and would have been the largest of its kind in eight months.

“It’s astonishing,” said Fred Yosca, managing director and head of trading at BNY Mellon Capital Markets in New York. “A household name, like the Port Authority, not being able to get a bid is truly a sign of a market that is in distress.”

States and cities have struggled to sell bonds through advertised bidding in recent months, as underwriters focus on lining up individual investors in negotiated deals ahead of time to avoid getting stuck with too many unsold securities.

Massachusetts hired Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. in October to negotiate the sale of $750 million of tax- exempt notes due in less than a year after scrapping two earlier advertised rounds of bidding.

Largest Offering

Today’s deal was to have been the largest taxable municipal offering sold competitively since the Port Authority’s own $350 million transaction in March, based on data compiled by Bloomberg. Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. was the winning bidder then, and Citigroup had the cover, or next-highest, bid.

In the municipal market, competitive sales force banks to place interest-cost bids to win the right to market bonds to investors. In more-common negotiated deals, underwriters are chosen before borrowers talk about rates and prices with buyers. Municipal issuers have sold 81 percent of their long-term debt via negotiation this year, with competitive deals making up most of the rest, according to Bloomberg data.

The lack of bids today will have “no impact” on any current capital projects because the deal was scheduled “well in advance” of its capital-funding needs, the Port Authority said in a news release.

The agency, which is redeveloping the World Trade Center site in lower Manhattan, typically sells taxable debt to fund capital projects that aren’t related to transportation.

“We are confident that the markets will recover in the upcoming year when we plan to return with another sale,” the authority said in the statement. “Our credit ratings and our financial health remain strong.”

‘Market Access’

Moody’s cited the Port Authority’s “demonstrated market access” in its rating report for the notes, after it got an average of nine bids at its four previous note sales.

The Port Authority’s taxable notes would compete for demand from investors also considering more than $15 billion of three- year securities sold by banks with recently approved guarantees from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.

Mary Talbutt-Glassberg, a vice president at Devon, Pennsylvania-based Davidson Trust Co., with about $1 billion under management, said she opted not to pursue the Port Authority bonds.

“I would feel better if there were definite financial support on the deal,” such as insurance like that provided by the FDIC, she said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=apiJ2jG6NvJw&refer=us

Toothy · Post by **Toothy** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 12:59 am

Some hopes of progress vs. the UAW today.

a1bion · Post by **a1bion** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 3:04 pm

How freaking backwards have we gotten things when one of the greatest cities in the world can't get anyone to finance their debt now, but just a year or two ago, you could sell bonds backed by the worst garbage on the face of the planet for whatever you wanted? And people would not only eat that shit, they would tell you how yummy that shit tasted and ask for seconds and thirds.

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 3:28 pm

here's the thing.

EVERYONE is looking for money...your typical bricks and mortar type companies are...municipalities are...banks are...everyone.

as an investor, and you have the cash to loan, you are going to be VERY, VERY particular with what you're going to do with that money and whom you want to loan it to...this is not so much a credit story (regarding the credit worthiness or lack of for the port authority and the states of NY and NJ) but a relative value story...where is the value? should i tie up this money in notes that will yield me "X" for "Y" amount of years or should i give it to, IMHO, another company rated similarly but yielding "X" plus another couple of hundred basis points...as long as i've done my diligence and understand why there is a huge difference in the similarly rated entities, why would you loan it to NY/NJ port authority? it's bad business if you've got alternatives....and TRUST ME...there are borrowers looking to give it up for the cash...cash is king as we've said before...those who have it dictate the pace of play.

and i am SURE that there were bids...the bids may not be acceptable to the borrower but i'm sure there were...we call em 'throw away' bids...bids you don't expect to get hit on but if you do, you'll gladly buy it because you're bidding at extremely cheap levels relative to comparables and historics...even then, when your 'throw away' bid gets hit, you feel like a schmuck 'cause now you know you didn't bid 'em CHEAP enough....lol.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 8:09 pm

here's the thing.

EVERYONE is looking for money...your typical bricks and mortar type companies are...municipalities are...banks are...everyone.

as an investor, and you have the cash to loan, you are going to be VERY, VERY particular with what you're going to do with that money and whom you want to loan it to...this is not so much a credit story (regarding the credit worthiness or lack of for the port authority and the states of NY and NJ) but a relative value story...where is the value? should i tie up this money in notes that will yield me "X" for "Y" amount of years or should i give it to, IMHO, another company rated similarly but yielding "X" plus another couple of hundred basis points...as long as i've done my diligence and understand why there is a huge difference in the similarly rated entities, why would you loan it to NY/NJ port authority? it's bad business if you've got alternatives....and TRUST ME...there are borrowers looking to give it up for the cash...cash is king as we've said before...those who have it dictate the pace of play.

Interesting insight here...not groundbreaking but as someone who lacks any inside knowledge of the industry it's enlightening and an important point.

and i am SURE that there were bids...the bids may not be acceptable to the borrower but i'm sure there were...we call em 'throw away' bids...bids you don't expect to get hit on but if you do, you'll gladly buy it because you're bidding at extremely cheap levels relative to comparables and historics...even then, when your 'throw away' bid gets hit, you feel like a schmuck 'cause now you know you didn't bid 'em CHEAP enough....lol.

LOL True...Gotta suck to be the only bidder, win and then wonder how much lower they would have gone.

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 8:46 pm

^ precisely (regarding 'throw away' bids)

re: throw away bids...a common practice of primary dealers in quarterly auctionings of gov't debt, bidders would participate (as was requested by the fed and i believe, i could be wrong, but i believe you were obligated to participate if you were one of the 20-or-so-something primary dealers) by bidding for the auctioned off securities at 15, 20, sometimes 50 basis points cheaper than where those actual securities were trading in the live market just minutes before the auction deadline....bidding so cheap and with the understanding that you would not be rewarded served 2 purposes...1 - it showed you were participating and you were holding up your end of the bargain as a primary dealer 2 - depending on how close you were to missing, fed viewed you as 'aggressive' and appreciated your participation even more.

the market got so ugly the last several years that dealers participating wouldn't even bother trying to be so cute with their 'throw away' bids...you see, the more aggressive you were on your 'phoney' bids, the more believable you looked in terms of the feds view....the market got so ugly that dealers didn't care to look interested by the fed anymore...so they started bidding ridiculously cheap levels...fed knew what was going on and they were not pleased...these levels were not realistic and their reports would skew their reports showing indications of interest...can you really qualify my desire to buy that house that you're auctioning off as an indication of interest if i'm only bidding your $23? of course not...so fed got annoyed, dealers were getting annoyed too because the fed started rewarding to those closer throw aways just because they needed the money.....so dealers stopped bidding.

remember - and we've talked about this before....buyers dictate the market....the value of an item is determined by how much a buyer wants to buy it for...the seller does not dictate the price...clearly - buyers (with cash) in the market are being selective and rightfully so.

a1bion · Post by **a1bion** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 8:56 pm

Look at the yields on three month and two year Treasuries and you can see where all the money has gone. Market went from completely mispricing risk to wanting nothing to do with risk.

annarborgator · Post by **annarborgator** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:00 pm

I love telling people that something is only worth the price someone else will pay you for it. Appraise or fix the price all you want, but if nobody shows up with money....then I don't think your shit is worth what you thought it was (for now).

That's damn good color on the relationships between the Fed and primary dealers. I really wish I could figure out more about that stuff...I can't imagine the shit that goes on behind closed doors at that level.

Also...spot on a1...hell, even the 10 yr treasury is at or near a record low yield right now. Seems like it might be a hell of a bubble...but I dunno.

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:14 pm

Look at the yields on three month and two year Treasuries and you can see where all the money has gone. Market went from completely mispricing risk to wanting nothing to do with risk.

positively sloped...and the short end is, imho, a direct reflection on where the fed funds rate is.

radbag · Post by **radbag** » Thu Dec 04, 2008 9:25 pm

That's damn good color on the relationships between the Fed and primary dealers. I really wish I could figure out more about that stuff...I can't imagine the shit that goes on behind closed doors at that level.

it used to be a privilege and a distinction to be noticed as a 'primary' dealer...NOWADAYS, it's not essential...the advent of internet based trading programs developed by the likes of reuters, marketaccess, bloomberg, etc as an alternative to trading with brokers has helped mitigate the need/interest in applying for 'primary' status....fed 'leans' on the primary dealers for support so much so these days that the benefit of being one nowadays has been outweighed by the view that it's more of a pain in the ass.