Excerpt:
Investors on the hunt for yield with few pickings scooped up Chicago Public Schools? junk paper Wednesday driving down the district?s yield penalties paid in the primary market to their lowest in years.
The 10-year in the $560 million sale that marked the Chicago Board of Education?s first COVID-19 era sale settled at a yield of 1.94%, a 117 basis point spread to the Municipal Market Data?s AAA benchmark.
The BBB benchmark was at an 89 basis point spread Thursday. The new-money and refunding bonds carried one investment grade rating and two speculative grade ones and while high yield investors snapped up the paper, Alliance Bernstein?s high impact social fund shunned the transaction. The fund said the district has failed to provide sufficient evidence it?s protecting students from in-school sexual misconduct in the aftermath of a scandal that drew a rebuke from the U.S. Department of Education.
Author: Yvette Shields
Publication Date: 29 January 2021
Publication Site: Fidelity Fixed Income