CHARLESTON, WV – Gov. Jim Justice announced today that the State of West Virginia has sold $600 million in General Obligation State Road Bonds, Series 2019 A (“2019 GO Bonds”) and generated over $746.5 million in proceeds – a premium of $146.5 million – to be used for highway, bridge and secondary road construction projects through the State.
“This program is truly bringing prosperity to West Virginia in many ways and today’s sale of these bonds is going to keep all of this goodness going for years to come,” Gov. Justice said. “By giving our entire transportation infrastructure these much-needed improvements, not only are we are providing jobs for people to work on these projects, but we’re also building the roads that are going to bring more and more people and businesses into our great state for the long haul.
“I thank all those who were so instrumental in making this sale a reality, especially our Secretary of Revenue Dave Hardy and Secretary of Transportation Byrd White.”
This bond sale was approved and made possible by the voters of West Virginia on October 7, 2017 when they went to the polls and overwhelmingly decided to support the launch of the Governor’s Roads To Prosperity program.
In the two years since, more than 500 of these major projects have been completed, spanning more than 1,100 miles of roadways.
The bonds were sold competitively on Tuesday in two batches, with Jefferies, LLC and Citigroup Global Markets submitting the winning respective bids.
Based on recent meetings on Wall Street with each of the “Big Three” credit rating agencies: Moody's, Standard & Poor's, and Fitch Group, the agencies rated the bonds “Aa2,” “AA-,“ and “AA,” respectively.
The State’s strong credit rating and positive market conditions allowed the State to lock in an attractive blended borrowing rate of 2.999% on the $600 million of general obligation bonds offered as part of this transaction.
In May 2018 West Virginia locked in a low borrowing rate of 3.575% on the State’s first issuance of general obligation bonds as part of the Roads to Prosperity Program offered in the amount of $800 million. Taken together, the state has secured a strong blended borrowing rate of 3.324% on $1.4 billion of the $1.6 billion of general obligation bonds to be sold as a part of the Roads to Prosperity Program.