South Broward Hospital District Series 2021A and 2021B
Pricing Date: November 9, 2021
Closing Date: November 18, 2021
$200,000,000 Series 2021A Tax-Exempt Bonds
$50,000,000 Series 2021B Taxable Bonds
Objectives
South Broward Hospital District (“SBHD”) d/b/a Memorial Healthcare System desired to finance the expansion at it’s Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, the construction of a cancer institute and women’s pavilion, and other capital projects.
Challenges
- As public hospital district, vendor selection transparency and “fair pricing” assurance is an important priority for SBHD
- The bond markets leading up to November moved noticeably weaker with waning investor demand and increasing credit spreads
- Private use concerns related to the women’s pavilion created a need for some taxable debt
Solutions
- Competitive Bid Process: To provide full transparency, Ponder advised SBHD to access both the tax-exempt and taxable debt markets through a competitive bid process (SBHD’s 6th and 7th competitively priced transactions over the past six years). Ponder served as financial advisor on the bond sales assisting SBHD in all aspects of the financing process: reviewing documents, rating agency preparation, plan of finance development, notices of sale, coordinating sale advertisements, crafting the investor presentation, organizing the marketing process, setting up the bidding platform and running consecutive competitive bids on same sale date.
- Structuring: Given the flatness of the yield curve, Ponder advised SBHD to issue its 2021 Bonds with long maturities, wrapping around SBHD’s existing debt without significantly increasing its interest rates.
- Bond Sale Results: SBHD received 6 bids for the 2021A Bonds with Wells Fargo being selected as the winning bidder (lowest TIC) by utilizing various 3% and discount coupon bonds (2.72%); SBHD received 7 bids for the 2021B Taxable Bonds with Morgan Stanley providing the lowest TIC bid (2.88%) for 30 year bonds.
About South Broward Hospital District: ‘Aa3/AA’ (Moody’s/S&P)
SBHD is an independent special tax district located in Broward county. SBHD operates an integrated healthcare delivery system comprised of five hospitals, a multi-specialty physician practice, a clinically integrated physician hospital organization, post-acute providers and other health care related services at multiple locations. Memorial Regional Hospital, which includes the Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, is the Issuer’s largest acute care hospital with 797-licensed beds and is located in Hollywood, Florida.