Town Hopes to up its BBBond Rating
Mammoth’s Town Council voted 4-0, with Council member Bill Sauser absent, to authorize the issuance of bonds to refinance the Town’s debt in the Mammoth Lakes Land Acquisition, LLC (MLLA) settlement agreement.
The resolution, adopted Wednesday, July 19, authorized Town staff to continue the refinancing process. However, currently it is unknown what bond rating the Town might achieve upon reassessment, said Marty Johnson, the Town’s financial advisor.
Johnson said that analysts from financial services company Standard & Poor’s are willing to come to Mammoth Lakes to possibly reassess its bond rating, which most recently was put at BBB+ in 2015, according to Town Manager Dan Holler.
“I am thrilled they are willing to come here,” said Johnson. “It will make for a much more effective presentation.”
He said that recent developments, such as the Downtown Revitalization project, the Mammoth Base Land Exchange, and the purchase of Mammoth Mountain by Aspen-KSL, may influence the analysts to upgrade Mammoth’s rating.
“I think we have a really good story to tell,” said Johnson. “It depends on how much they want to punish you for what happened 8-10 years ago.”
He said that physically bringing the analysts to Mammoth would give them “an understanding of what they were really rating. And I think that’s the benefit.”
The hope is that Mammoth could achieve an “A-minus” rating, and, “assuming we can get to [that] rating, we could actually do very well comparable to the [interest] rates” currently available for bonds.
