Bangkok--28 Sep--Standard and Poor's
Standard and Poor's Rating Services assigned its 'BBB+' long-term rating to the California State Public Works Board's (SPWB) $234.46 million series 2011A lease revenue bonds (issued for various capital projects), $98.28 million series 2011B lease revenue bonds (issued for various California State University projects), and $150.72 million series 2011C lease revenue bonds (issued for California State Prison- Los Angeles County Housing Units). Each series of bonds is being issued on behalf of the state of California.
Standard & Poor's also affirmed its 'BBB+' long-term rating and underlying rating (SPUR) on approximately $7.2 billion of California's SPWB lease revenue and lease revenue refunding bonds outstanding (which excludes $2.22 billion of lease-revenue bonds issued by the SPWB for the projects of the Regents of the University of California). The SPWB issued these bonds. The outlook on the new issues and the existing bonds is stable.
"The underlying general creditworthiness of the state and statutory protection from non-appropriation risk that we consider strong support the rating," said Standard & Poor's credit analyst Gabriel Petek.
State obligations to the kindergarten through 12th grade public school system and public institutions of higher education are the state's only obligations that, according to the state's constitution, have a higher priority than its GO debt service payments. Of the state's debt service payments, the state's lease- and appropriation-backed debt is among its other priority payments that fall behind state GO bond and Proposition 1A bond payments.
RELATED CRITERIA AND RESEARCH
- USPF Criteria: Appropriation-Backed Obligations, June 13, 2007
- USPF Criteria: State Ratings Methodology, Jan. 3, 2011
Complete ratings information is available to subscribers of RatingsDirect on the Global Credit Portal at www.globalcreditportal.com. All ratings affected by this rating action can be found on Standard & Poor's public Web site at www.standardandpoors.com. Use the Ratings search box located in the left column.
Media Contact:
Ola Fadahunsi, New York (1) 212-438-5095,
[email protected]
Analyst Contacts:
Gabriel Petek, CFA, San Francisco (1) 415-371-5042
David G Hitchcock, New York (1) 212-438-2022