Transaction Details

Elgin School District No. 46

Municipal

Co-Manager

Following a competitive RFP process, Baird was selected to serve as a 25% co-managing underwriter on Elgin School District U-46’s $57,230,000 General Obligation School Bonds, Series 2024.  The 2024 Bonds were issued as part of a $179 million referendum, which passed on April 4, 2023. Baird competed against national and regional underwriting firms and was awarded the opportunity to serve as co-managing underwriter (together with JP Morgan as senior managing underwriter and Cabrera Capital Markets as co-manager, the “Underwriting Team”) based on our large retail presence in northern Illinois, retail marketing experience and the District’s desire for a strong retail marketing plan on the referendum bonds.

For the second tranche of referendum bonds in 2025, the District indicated that they wanted to work with the same financing team after the successful pricing of the 2024 Bonds. The $55,625,000 General Obligation School Bonds successfully priced on January 28, 2025.

The proceeds will be used for projects approved by District voters which include: constructing safety and security improvements; renovating and replacing building infrastructure, adding classrooms for early childhood education, constructing accessibility improvements under the Americans with Disabilities Act, constructing STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) labs and classrooms; building and equipping school buildings to replace existing school buildings; and building and equipping additions to and altering, repairing and equipping existing school buildings and improving sites of the District.

Baird assisted in the development of a robust marketing plan to generate interest from retail investors which included publications in the District’s local newspaper The Daily Herald.  Baird had extensive premarketing efforts which included spending two weeks creating and distributing flyers and e-mail templates to our Private Wealth Management (“PWM”) group for distribution to their clients. Baird’s investment bankers had calls with our local Illinois PWM offices, specifically our local Elgin office, to educate them on the offering and to generate general awareness.

As a result of the Underwriting Team’s efforts, the 2025 Bonds were very well received with over $138.7 million in orders (2.5x the par amount) and oversubscriptions in 13 of 16 maturities by as much as 4.3x. Overall, retail investors submitted $460,000 in orders, of which Baird brought in $200,000 (43%) in retail orders as a 25% co-manager, which was top priority of the District. Baird placed $16.1 million in orders (29% of par, above our 25% participation). The Underwriting Team was able to lower yields by 2 to 4 basis points on all maturities.