P3s, investment funds slow last year, but pipeline remains healthy

U.S. public-private partnership activity weakened last year but the longer-term trend of a rising number of P3s held strong while the future boasts a healthy project pipeline and infrastructure funds looking to invest. Those are among the conclusions reached by a pair of recent annual reports by Reason Foundation, a libertarian-leaning think tank that closely tracks public-private activity in the U.S. and across the world. "The U.S. market is continuing to recover from the COVID years," said Baruch Feigenbaum, Reason's senior managing director of transportation policy, who penned the surface transportation report with Jay Derr. "If you look at the trajectory and what deals were closing, the trend is still positive," he said.

Watch what the municipal bond industry’s innovators and influencers are saying in our Leaders series of video interviews. Check out our lineup of future live interviews and archived conversations.

Texas lawmakers held a marathon hearing last week to grill public university leaders on their compliance with a 2023 state law banning diversity, equity, and inclusion offices at their schools or face financial consequences.?

Nominations are open for the next class of Bond Buyer Rising Stars and the third class of Muni Hall of Famers.

San Antonio's CPS Energy will head to the municipal bond market next month with a big debt sale involving a tender offer and improved outlooks for two of its credit ratings. Fitch Ratings and S&P Global Ratings, which both rated the upcoming $1.05 billion electric and gas systems revenue bond deal AA-minus, revised their outlooks on the utility to stable from negative.?

Learn more about the trends impacting the industry in The Bond Buyer’s annual review of municipal bond market statistics.

Illinois needs to address the questions surrounding its Tier 2 state pension benefits, and while directly fixing Tier 2’s alleged failure to meet the IRS’s minimum safe harbor standard would be credit neutral, enhancing Tier 2 benefits more broadly or erasing the distinction between Tier 1 and Tier 2 could result in a downgrade, Fitch Ratings said.

Read the newest research from The Bond Buyer detailing the public finance industry’s views of the risks and opportunities in 2024.

Municipals weakened further Tuesday in secondary trading as a large new-issue slate took focus in the primary market. U.S. Treasury yields fell and equities were in the black. Muni yields were cut up to seven basis points, depending on the scale, while UST yields fell two to three basis points, pushing muni to UST ratios higher.

Municipal finance professionals are preparing for an important election in November. Follow The Bond Buyer's coverage of 2024 election developments.

A development agreement for a professional sports arena in Oklahoma City, costing at least $900 million, won approval Tuesday in a 7-2 city council vote. The deal with the owners of the National Basketball Association's Oklahoma City Thunder allocates the lion's share of the project's funding to the city, with the team contributing $50 million. A one-cent sales tax will secure a minimum of $772 million in financing for the project, according to City Manager Craig Freeman.

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