An HFMA Healthcare Financial Pulse Resource
Even in today’s tough bond market, healthcare borrowers can manage a successful bond offering in concert with their underwriters and financial advisors, note Kerry Rudy and David Johnson, co-heads of the healthcare finance practice at Ziegler, a multi-faceted boutique investment firm, in “Overcoming Wall Street: Seven Steps to Better Bond Pricing.”
Among their advice: Think “directed retail.” This large investor class, consisting of those who purchase on behalf of small groups of individual investors and for their own accounts--such as bank trust departments, wrap accounts, and money managers--are emerging as an important source of demand for tax-exempt healthcare bonds. Directed retail purchasers prefer bonds with shorter maturities where large institutions often have less interest.
To pursue directed retail, you’ll want to:
- Engage brokerage firms with the ability to sell bonds to individual investors.
- Adjust the offering to make particular maturities attractive to retail buyers.
- Sell serial bonds.
Also, conduct a one-to-two day retail order period prior to initiating institutional sales. As the authors note, broad retail sales solidify an offering, reduce placement pressure, and position the underwriter to be more aggressive with institutional buyers. As a result, strong retail placement lowers interest rates.
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