Far West bond volume rung up big gain in first half of 2025
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Municipal bond issuers in the Far West sold $63.39 billion of debt in the first half of 2025, according to LSEG data, a 26.7% year-over-year gain.
Some of the increase reflects a buoyant national new issue market, which rose 14.7%, amid ultimately unrealized fears over the
But the nine-state region’s numbers — as always influenced by the massive volume pushed out in California — were also affected by factors specific to the Golden State.
“The vast majority of issuance we have had so far this year is new money for projects as opposed to refundings,” said Raul Amezcua, a senior director at Samuel A. Ramirez & Co.
“It’s fueled by a need to fund projects across all sectors,” Amezcua said. “It’s pent-up demand for infrastructure coming to the forefront. People just started tackling it.”
The year started out robustly with $26.8 billion in 237 issues in the first quarter and picked up steam hitting $36.6 billion in 396 issues in the second quarter. New money sales in the region grew 51.7% to $39.7 billion, while refundings fell more than 42% to $9.5 billion and deals that combined the two were up more than 93% to $14.2 billion.
“Everyone was concerned that tax exemption was on the table during the first half – and the universities were clearly trying to get in front of federal policies,” Amezcua said.
“I think we have seen some acceleration of deals, because of political risk — and that would be magnified in California,” said Justin Cooper, an Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe partner, board member, co-head of public finance and chair of the firm’s housing finance group.
The rush to get deals out the door also resulted in an increase in deal size in the state, Amezcua said.
“From 2020 to 2023 in California, 40% of the volume came from deals $500 million or larger,” he said. “From 2024 to 2025, 55% of volume came from deals $500 million or larger. The volume is fueled by large issuers and they are issuing larger deals.”
California, the
California state government sold $7.04 billion in new money in the first half, up from $6.6 billion in 2024; and $3.2 billion in refundings, up from $2.13 billion, according to State Treasurer’s Office data. The totals included sales from conduit issuers and other state agencies.
New money sales by the Regents of University of California increased to $2.06 billion from $675.8 million, but UC refundings fell to $1.1 billion from $1.8 billion.
The largest sale of the half in the country was $2.63 billion in California general obligation bonds priced April 2 by lead managers J.P. Morgan and Loop Capital Markets.
In second was a $2.5 billion deal for the Brightline West passenger train project, which would connect Las Vegas to the Los Angeles region.
The UC Regents had the next largest deal, $2 billion priced Jan. 28 by Morgan Stanley and Wells Fargo, followed by March’s $1.6 billion Los Angeles Department of Airport pricing by Barclays and Ramirez.
A backlog of public infrastructure projects needing attention has been a major driver as well as California’s housing shortage, said Cooper. He adds that he thinks issuers have been spurred by interest from an increasing number of investors with broader appetites.
“I never would have predicted it would grow by 26%; that is surprising,” Cooper said.
“I don’t want to make this all about environmental justice, but I am surprised that natural disaster concerns and risks are not having more of a negative effect on the market,” Cooper said. He was anticipating
In the region, issuers in Washington, at $6.8 billion, and Oregon at $4.4 billion were the second and third highest source of municipal volume. The Evergreen State experienced an 11.9% decline from the first six months of 2024, while the Beaver State experienced a nearly 75% increase.
Muni volume in Idaho increased by 75% to $2.1 billion for a second mid-year burst, after volume there doubled from $543 million in 2023 to $1.1 billion in 2024. In the remaining states, Nevada issuers sold $2 billion, Hawaii $1.5 billion, Alaska $647.4 million, Montana issuers sold $290.4 million and Wyoming $100 million.
Deals LSEG classified as education led the way with $20.9 billion in 338 issues, with volume up 48.8% in the first half.
“K-12 has just received continued support from voters,” Cooper said. “They are getting more school bonds approved, which gives people the confidence to move forward.”
That was followed by $11.2 billion in transportation, $8.4 billion for general purpose and $7.1 billion for electric power.
A trend Cooper said he has been seeing in higher education is an increase in
He believes the bump in spending for electricity-related bonds could come from the spike in issuance of prepaid electricity bonds. Community choice aggregator California Community Choice Financing Authority was the state’s fifth-ranked issuer in the first half with more than $1.5 billion; clean energy issuers in California had two of the region’s 15 largest deals in the first half.
BofA Securities secured the top spot in the region for senior managers, credited by LSEG with $9.83 billion in 60 deals, trailed by J.P. Morgan Securities with $5.56 billion in 26 issues and Goldman Sachs coming in third with $5.54 billion in 18 issues.
PFM secured the top slot among financial advisors, credited with $13.5 billion in 60 issues, followed by Public Resources Advisory Group with $7.5 billion in 19 issues and KNN Public Finance with $5.6 billion in 43 issues.
Orrick continued its reign atop the bond counsel rankings with $19.77 billion in 112 issues, followed by Stradling Yocca Carlson & Rauth at $8.91 billion with 94 issues and Kutak Rock with $4.68 billion in 24 issues.
The state of California was the region’s number-one issuer, credited with $3.63 billion. The Washington state government, at $1.74 billion, ranked fifth and was the biggest Far West issuer outside California.