On December 14, 2021, Siebert Williams Shank & Co., LLC (“SWS”) served as senior manager for the City of Atlanta, Georgia’s (“City”) Various Purpose General Obligation Bonds, Series 2021B (“Series 2021B Bonds”) and General Obligation Refunding Bonds, Taxable Series 2021C (“Series 2021C Bonds”) transaction (together, the “Series 2021B/C Bonds”). The Series 2021B/C Bonds are rated Aa1 (stable) and AA+ (stable) by Moody’s and Fitch, respectively.

The City and its financial advisors targeted a 12/14 pricing date to coincide with a special meeting of the City Council for final approval of the transaction on 12/15. SWS closely coordinated with the financing team on scheduling to avoid any conflict with the 12/15 FOMC meeting and waning end-of-the-year investor attention.

The Series 2021B Bonds will be used to provide funds to pay, or to be applied or contributed toward the Series 2021B Project (as described in the OS under “Plan of Finance and Refunding”). The Series 2021C Bonds will refund the City’s outstanding callable Series 2014A GO Bonds and Series 2015 GO Public Improvement Bonds, a total of $168 million of refunded par.

The Series 2021B Bonds are structured with tax-exempt serial maturities from 2022 through 2031, each with 4% coupons attached to them, and are non-callable. The Series 2021C Bonds are structured with taxable serial bonds from 2022 through 2034 and have a 10-year par call. In addition, the Series 2021C Bonds are subject to Extraordinary Optional Redemption in the event of the occurrence of deannexation events affecting portions of the City (as described in the OS under “Redemption Provisions” and “Pending Legislation”). SWS’s desk took care in educating investors about the extraordinary redemption provision during premarketing in order to promote a successful and efficient IOI period.

The sale generated nearly $939 million of institutional orders, resulting in an oversubscription of 4.9x of the par amount being offered (not including stock orders).

SWS underwrote remaining unsold balances from the 2022, 2023, and 2024 maturities of the Series 2021B Bonds totaling $530,000.

Series 2021B Bonds: After the order period, SWS was able to tighten spreads at repricing by 2 bps from the 2025 through 2031 maturities.

Series 2021C Bonds: The IOI period took place on 12/13. Based on the week’s volume and investor feedback, SWS entered the market with the same spreads as those proposed during the premarketing period. The IOI period resulted in robust interest – going into Price Guidance the firm suggested tightening 3 to 10 bps points across the maturities, with the exception of 2025. The substantial subscription that remained following the bumps resulted in additional tightening of spreads, and ultimately, resulted in a final scale with spreads tighter by 10 to 15 basis points across each maturity with the exception of 2025, when compared to the premarketing scale.

TheSeries 2021B Bonds achieved an All-in TIC of 1.081%. TheSeries 2021C Bonds achieved an All-in TIC of 2.057%, and NPV savings of $18.136 million, or 10.77% of refunded par.