Treasurer Cahill Announces Bond Sale May 18th-20th

Friday, May 15, 2009 – State Treasurer Tim Cahill’s Office is planning to sell Commonwealth General Obligation Bonds Monday, May 18^th through Wednesday, May 20^th. The bonds will be sold to individual investors only on Monday, May 18^th and Tuesday, May 19^th with Massachusetts residents getting priority in orders.

Following the two-day retail-only sale, the Commonwealth will sell bonds competitively to institutional investors on Wednesday, May 20^th.

“We’re selling bonds in a slightly different manner for this transaction,” said Treasurer Tim Cahill. “By offering bonds to individual investors and then selling bonds to institutions competitively, we’re trying to take advantage of the best of both markets.”

The bond sale is expected to generate more than $600 million in bond proceeds, which will be used to finance capital investment in public infrastructure across the Commonwealth.

“We haven’t been able to sell bonds competitively in a while because of market volatility and the sheer size of our bond sales,” said Treasurer Cahill. “Since a typical competitive sale doesn’t allow bonds to be sold to individual investors, we decided to add two days for Massachusetts investors to place orders for bonds. It’s obviously beneficial to the Commonwealth if we can expand our investor base and sell bonds to as many individual Massachusetts investors as possible”

To date, the State Treasurer’s Office has sold more than $820 million in bonds to retail investors during Fiscal 2009.

Today the Commonwealth’s bond ratings were affirmed as ‘AA/Aa2/AA’ from Fitch Ratings, Moody’s Investor Services, and Standard & Poor’s, respectively. For more information on the upcoming sale, please go to www.buymassachusettsbonds.com

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