The Greer Journal

Update June 18, 2013 By Steven E. Greer, MD

The June 18th BPCA board meeting presented an update on the plan to refinance BPCA bonds (see below). The bank underwriters have been chosen and the “go to market” date is set for September. The leader underwriter will be Citigroup, despite Bank of America (Merrill Lynch) having the highest score of the RFP process.

Chairman Dennis Mehiel remarked that the underwriting fees are astonishingly ow, “The decimal point was in the wrong place, I thought”. Normall, the fee to the banks would be in the range of 1.5% to 2.5%. For a bond deal of $300 Million, Mehiel said, the fees would range from $5 Million to $9 Million. In this actual underwriting, the fees will be only $500,000.

May 23, 2013- By Steven E. Greer, MD

The Battery Park City Authority (BPCA) convened a board meeting today with little public notice, and no posting of agenda online, possibly violating the Open Meetings Law. Section 104 of the New York Law requires a one week notice to the media. The meeting was originally scheduled to take place after Memorial Day. Prior to the meeting, we tried to contact Anne Fenton and Mathew Monahan to obtain the meetings materials, and no one responded.

During the meeting, the main topic discussed was the vitally important process of issuing new bonds, and the various financial companies that would be contracted by the BPCA. The BPCA wants to take advantage of historically low interest rates to refinance existing bonds issued in 2003 and 2009.

In 2003, the BPCA issued Continue reading →