Santa Clara stadium bonds barely better than junk

Santa Clara's City Council is considering a request from the San Francisco 49ers to subsidize their new football stadium. Besides $222,000,000 cash from as-yet undetermined sources, the city would also need to issue $330,000,000 of bonds. The city's own bond consultant thinks this is such a risky investment that he rated it barely above "junk" bonds.

This came out in response to a question from a Santa Clara resident at the November 20, 2007 meeting of City Council.

Santa Clara resident Don Buchanan: "What kind of a rating do you think this bond will receive?"

David Brodsly, Managing Director, KNN Public Finance (the city's bond consultant): "The two bond issues that are ... umm ... being contemplated by the Stadium Authority ... they would be ... the ... the admissions bond would probably be in the BBB level which is the bottom of the investment grade range, that's ... it's ... that ... it's the less certain area of the market, but that's ... that's a good guess standing here today."

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News & Politics

Tags:

• santa clara
• stadium
• bonds
• junk bonds
• david brodsly
• subsidy
• scpf
• 49ers