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Bond Market Shows Great Enthusiasm for Chisholm Trail Parkway  The NTTA financial team closed on the sale of $640,535,000 of bonds on Nov. 2 for the acquisition, development and construction of the Chisholm Trail Parkway.
“It was a good day to be in the bond market. The uncertainty in the stock market, the strength of the Chisholm Trail Parkway project and the strong credit combined for a successful transaction,” said NTTA Chief Financial Officer Janice Davis.
The Chisholm Trail Parkway will join the President George Bush Turnpike Western Extension in making up the NTTA’s Special Projects System. The Series 2011 Bonds will be secured by the tolls on the Special Projects System and will be further supported by the Toll Equity Loan from the Texas Department of Transportation. The SPS Series 2011 Bonds follow the inaugural issuance of bonds secured by the new stand-alone credit of the NTTA Special Projects System in April to finance the Bush Turnpike Western Extension.
The NTTA System is providing a $400 million contribution to be used for both the Bush Turnpike Western Extension and the Chisholm Trail Parkway projects. The favorable financing of Bush Turnpike Western Extension allowed for a larger portion of the $400 million contribution to be used for the Chisholm Trail Parkway project.
The issues were heavily oversubscribed and surpassed interest rate expectations. The sale was comprised of:
- $73,665,000 in taxable bonds with yields ranging from 3.269 percent to 3.869 percent
- $566,870,000 in tax exempt bonds with yields that range from 2.59 percent on the 2019 maturities to 4.24 percent on the 2032 maturities
The SPS Series 2011 Bonds are not obligations of the NTTA System or the State of Texas. The NTTA received an AA rating from Standard & Poor’s and an AA- rating from Fitch Rating Services for the bonds.
The underwriting syndicate that priced the SPS Series 2011 Bonds was led by: senior underwriting manager J.P. Morgan Chase; co-senior underwriting managers Barclays Capital and Ramirez and Co. Inc; co-managers Bank of America Merrill Lynch, Jefferies and Company, and Rice Financial Products Company. Other finance team members were co-bond counsel McCall Parkhurst & Horton LLP and Mahomes Bolden PC; financial advisors RBC Capital Markets and TKG Associates; and underwriter’s Counsel Andrews Kurth.
The Chisholm Trail Parkway is a limited-access toll road that will extend from Fort Worth’s central business district to southwest Fort Worth, continuing south to Cleburne. Formerly known as Southwest Parkway/Chisholm Trail, the new corridor in southwest Tarrant and northwest Johnson counties will be approximately 27 miles long. The toll road is expected to open to traffic in mid-2014.
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