By Patrick Sheridan
Pennsylvania sold $125.4 million in municipal bonds to help pay for upgrades at Lehigh University.
The tax-exempt bonds were sold by the Northampton County General Purpose Authority. The Series A of 2024 Higher Education Fixed Rate Revenue Bonds have maturities ranging from 2024 to 2034 according to a prospectus posted on MuniOS on Tuesday. Bonds due in 2034 have an interest rate of 5% and a yield of 3.07%.
A portion of the proceeds will be used to finance various capital projects at Lehigh including construction, improvement, renovation, furnishing and equipping of various campus facilities including the University Center, a health, science and technology building, student housing and other facilities related to classrooms, laboratories, the library, sports, student services and the administration.
The county also plans to use proceeds from the bonds to refund all of the authority's variable rate 2000B bonds, as well as refunding all of its variable rate 2004 bonds and funding all or a portion of the costs and expenses of issuing the 2004 bonds.
Lehigh University is a private, co-educational institution founded in 1865 and is located in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. It has approximately 5,800 undergraduate students and over 1700 graduate students on a full or part-time basis.
The bonds are expected to be offered on or about Aug. 15, according to the document on MuniOS.
Wells Fargo is the lead underwriter.
The bonds have been assigned ratings of AA- by S&P Global Ratings and Aa3 by Moody's Investors Service.
Write to Patrick Sheridan at patrick.sheridan@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
08-07-24 1358ET
