CHARLESTON, W.Va. — State Revenue Secretary Dave Hardy says his button-down office partied hard over the interest rate on the latest round of road bonds.
“To the extent you can do high fives in the revenue office, we were doing high fives,” Hardy said this morning on MetroNews’ “Talkline.”
West Virginia went to market this week on the second and third rounds of Roads to Prosperity bonds. Individually, those were approved to be $400 million and $200 million bond sales — totalling $600 million.
State officials said the sale actually generated more than $746.5 million in proceeds – a premium of $146.5 million – to be used for highway, bridge and secondary road construction projects through the state.
The interest rate that was locked down was 2.99 percent.
“That was just over the top good. We were so happy with that,” Hardy said.
.@DaveHardyWV talks with @HoppyKercheval about selling road bonds and revenue numbers. WATCH: https://t.co/wkudfIAoe1 pic.twitter.com/eGK8uG9ovO
— MetroNews (@WVMetroNews) December 4, 2019
The bond sale was approved West Virginia voters on Oct. 7, 2017. In the two years since, more than 500 of these major projects have been completed, spanning more than 1,100 miles of roads, state officials said.
The first bond series to go to market in 2018 was valued at $800 million. The interest rate locked in for that round was 3.575 percent.
Last spring, legislators authorized the next two rounds to go to market.
Since then, state officials met on Wall Street with each of the “Big Three” credit rating agencies: Moody’s, Standard & Poor’s, and Fitch Group. The agencies rated the bonds “Aa2,” “AA-,“ and “AA,” respectively.
The state’s strong credit rating and positive market conditions allowed locking in the favorable blended borrowing rate of 2.999 percent,” Hardy said.
“All that came together and we got good ratings,” Hardy said.
The bonds were sold competitively on Tuesday in two batches, with Jefferies, LLC and Citigroup Global Markets submitting the winning respective bids.
There’s one more bond series approved by the voters in 2017.
That one is valued at $200 million and may only go to market after July 1, 2020.
“This program is truly bringing prosperity to West Virginia in many ways and today’s sale of these bonds is going to keep all of this goodness going for years to come,” Gov. Jim Justice stated in an announcement of the bond sale.
“By giving our entire transportation infrastructure these much-needed improvements, not only are we are providing jobs for people to work on these projects, but we’re also building the roads that are going to bring more and more people and businesses into our great state for the long haul.”