Airport Bonds get ?BBB? Rating from Fitch
by March 31, 2003 12:00 am 72 views
Fitch Ratings, a San Francisco-based credit rating agency, recently assigned a “BBB” rating to $37.3 million worth of Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport Authority revenue bonds for the 2003 refunding series.
Security for the bonds is provided from airport revenues and about $14.4 million of restricted grant money used as liquidity for debt service. Fitch said the bonds are to be sold through negotiation via Morgan Keegan & Co. during the first week in April.
“For a relatively new airport, that’s a good rating,” said Peter Stettler, a director of public finance at Fitch Ratings.
“It reflects both the strong growth of the airport since it came online and the favorable location its in with Wal-Mart, Tyson and J.B. Hunt close buy generating passenger traffic.”
The series 2003 bonds and another $11.6 million of authority funds will be used to support $49 million of tendered 1997 bonds. After the tender and this 2003 refunding issue, the authority will have about $71 million outstanding in revenue bonds.
During fiscal 2002, XNA served 400,063 enplaned passengers through six signatory airlines.
The credit strengths include the region’s growing population and XNA’s strong business traveler component, according to Fitch Ratings.