Denver International Airport (DIA) has sold $856 million of airport revenue bonds in a bid to finance its south terminal redevelopment programme and other capital improvement projects including a new train station and hotel.
In total, the bond sale will provide $394 million of funding for the projects and $462 million of refunding bonds to reduce debt service costs for the airport, while the entire $856 million will be repaid from future airport revenues.
The sale was conducted by a team of nine investment banks with Barclays serving as the lead firm for the transaction.
Some of the maturities were significantly oversubscribed due to the strong demand for the bonds from a broad cross-section of buyers from Colorado, along with national retail investors, bond funds, insurance companies, money managers and investment advisers.
Patrick Heck, chief financial officer at Denver International Airport, said: “This strong acceptance of DIA bonds demonstrates the market’s view of DIA as a financially strong airport with a great competitive position.”
The fund will be used to fund the redevelopment of the gateway’s South Terminal as well as for the construction of a new DIA train station and a Westin Hotel, which are both slated to open in 2015.
Kim Day, manager of aviation at DIA, added: “The South Terminal Redevelopment Program is important to Denver and the entire metropolitan region.
“Building the DIA train station and hotel will provide many valuable construction jobs and on-going service jobs when these airport facilities open.”
The underwriters who sold the bonds were Barclays and Citigroup, which served as co-senior managers, and D.A. Davidson & Co, George K. Baum & Co., Goldman, Sachs & Co., Loop Capital Markets, RBC Capital Markets, US Bancorp and Wells Fargo Securities as co-managers.
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