CITY SELLS  $396 MILLION OF GENERAL OBLIGATION BONDS

Despite a volatile market, the City was able to take advantage of a window of opportunity to lock in extremely favorable rates when it sold $396 million worth of general obligation bonds on Wednesday, November 2, 2005 at an interest cost of 4.50 percent.

  The interest rate is one of the lowest the City has secured in recent years.  

Investor demand was strong from key institutional investors nationwide. Local support for the City’s bond offering was impressive, with retail orders totaling approximately $47 million, or approximately 12 percent of the bonds sold.  

“We extremely gratified that local and institutional investors demonstrated such support for the City, allowing the City to continue to meet our financial objectives and secure low borrowing costs for taxpayers,” said Mayor Mufi Hannemann. “This is part of our effort to get the City back on firm financial ground.”

UBS Financial Services, Inc., served as the lead underwriter with Merrill Lynch serving as co-manager on approximately $396 million of tax-exempt bonds. As with the City’s previous bond sales, bond insurance was secured for this offering and was provided by FGIC.

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Contact:

Bill Brennan 527-6928

            Mark Matsunaga 527-5767