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August 10, 2009
I am the god of capitalism, and I give you nonsense
Gumby Fresh
We don't know about you, but we're always happy to see a new post from "the Best Blog Speculating About The Atlantic Yards Arena Financing Evar."
To those pedants among you saying that the proper name for the arena is "Barclays Center", I would say, it ain't called that till it's built, and if Barclays wants me to advertise its execrable banking services it can pay me directly.
Anyway, the cause of this haste is a workmanlike update on the arena financing from the Times' Charles Bagli, FCR's go-to guy for expectations management. Oder teases out the juicy bits so you don't have to. But it's fairly thin stuff.
Ratner's meeting the ratings agencies, which we knew. What we don't know yet is if he's trying to put something together with Assured Guaranty, the least crap bond insurer in the whole of America. He's scrounging for cash from the public and outside investors, both of which are fairly well-known.
Which leaves us with the last paragraph of the story:
Some real estate executives and critics said it would be hard to sell the bonds for such an uncertain project. But Jay Abrams, a bond analyst at FMS Bonds, said there “is definitely an appetite for tax-exempt bonds in New York, and elsewhere.” The lawsuit, he added, “is not necessarily a game-killer. At the right price, there’s always a buyer for bonds.”
I don't know whether Bagli tried to ask Ratner whether he had a plan for getting the bonds out ahead of the litigation being resolved. I suspect Ratner would have been deliberately vague in any case. The reasons being that any way round the December 31 deadline for a bond financing would be fiendishly convoluted.
But let's go back to this Jay Abrams at FMS Bonds. He seems like a contrarian sort of fellow. Maybe they should give him a spot at The Big Money. It could well be that he's privy to the machinations inside Goldman Sachs' sports finance shop. More likely, though, he doesn't have a clue what he's talking about.
More coverage...
Atlantic Yards Report, Market for arena bonds? Maybe it's a little dicey
Everybody's favorite AY finance blogger, the pseudonymous Gari N. Corp, takes a gander at the actual market for tax-exempt arena bonds.
Posted by eric at August 10, 2009 11:49 AM