Puerto Rico plans $500 million sales tax revenue bonds; Toho Water to price $92.40 million bonds

By Cristal Cody and Sheri Kasprzak

New York, Dec. 18 - Puerto Rico's Sales Tax Financing Corp. led primary market news on Tuesday with word that it is expected to price $500 million in sales tax revenue bonds later this week.

The series 2007C bonds are set to price Thursday, according to a release from Moody's Investors Service.

Moody's rated the bonds A1 on Tuesday.

According to Moody's, the proceeds from the bonds will be used to repay debt obligations owed to the Puerto Rico Public Finance Corp.

Also ahead this week is a $100 million offering of bonds from the Florida Department of Environmental Protection.

The Aaa rated bonds include $50 million in series 2007-A bonds and $50 million in series 2007-B bonds. Both series are set to price on Wednesday.

The bonds are insured by Assured Guaranty Corp.

Another offering set for pricing Wednesday is a $92.395 million issue of bonds from the Toho, Fla., Water Authority. Those bonds (A1/A+/AA-) were talked Tuesday at yields ranging from 3.85% to 4.1%.

Looking way ahead, the Lewisville, Tex., Independent School District plans to price at the beginning of next year an $87.745 million issue of general obligation school building bonds, series 2008.

The bonds (Aa3/AA-) are expected to price Jan. 14, 2008 and settle on Feb. 1, 2008.

First Southwestern is the lead manager for the bonds.

Nevada, Michigan bonds to price

Later this week, the Nevada Department of Business and Industry will price $100 million in revenue bonds and the Michigan State Building Authority is scheduled to price $96.5 million in multi-modal revenue bonds, series I, also on Thursday.

The Nevada bonds are rated Aa2 and the Michigan bonds Aaa.

UBS Securities LLC is the lead manager for the Nevada issue and JPMorgan Chase Bank Securities is the lead manager for the Michigan issue.

Indianapolis bonds pricing

Elsewhere, a $283 million issue of Indianapolis Bond Bank notes was expected to price Tuesday and $110 million Indianapolis Bond Bank Waterworks bonds were set to price earlier this week.

The $283 million issue of bond bank notes includes $109 million in notes due July 2008 and $174 million in notes due January 2009.

The bond bank notes are expected to settle Dec. 27.

The waterworks bonds are due in a series from 2009 to 2038 and Bear, Stearns & Co. is the lead manager for the issue.

Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport bonds

In other news, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Metropolitan Airport Commission expects little to no action on the pricing of $75 million of refunding bonds until January or mid-February.

"We're waiting to meet the threshold on the market," Steve Busch, director of finance for the commission, said Tuesday. "If we can't get 3% savings, we'll keep the bonds and continue to pay the bonds at that price rate."

The commission hopes to achieve coupons in the range of 5%-5½% for the refunding bonds (AA-/AA-). Refunding of the 1998 series of bonds with a serial structure from 2009 to 2016 would be for general savings, Busch said.

The lead underwriter is Bear, Stearns & Co.

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