{"id":57382,"date":"2025-11-17T21:50:33","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T21:50:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/57382\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T21:50:33","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T21:50:33","slug":"moodys-upgrades-san-francisco-airport-bond-rating","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/57382\/","title":{"rendered":"Moody’s upgrades San Francisco airport bond rating"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Travelers Improving liquidity and traffic were cited for a recent Moody’s Ratings upgrade at San Francisco International Airport, where travelers were pictured in May.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg News<\/p>\n

Moody’s Ratings upgraded San Francisco International Airport’s revenue bonds to Aa3 from A1 ahead of its plans to issue $969 million in debt.<\/p>\n

The outlook was moved to stable from positive at the new rating.<\/p>\n

“The upgrade reflects a significant improvement in liquidity, which we expect will be sustained going forward,” Moses Kopmar, a Moody’s vice president and senior analyst, said in Thursday’s ratings report.<\/p>\n

SFO’s enplanement recovery has reached 97% post-pandemic<\/a> and international traffic has surpassed pre-pandemic levels achieved in 2019, Kopmar said.<\/p>\n

The rating was assigned to $880 million Series 2025D, alternative minimum tax revenue bonds and $60 million Series 2025E, non-AMT\/governmental purpose bonds, expected to price Dec. 1, according to a filing<\/a> posted on the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board’s EMMA website. The preliminary offering statement is expected to be released this week, the filing said.<\/p>\n

A syndicate consisting of J.P. Morgan Securities LLC, Barclays Capital Inc., BofA Securities, Inc., Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Samuel A. Ramirez & Co., Inc., and RBC Capital Markets, LLC are the underwriters.<\/p>\n

Moody’s also upgraded the airport’s subordinate commercial paper notes and bank bond rating to A1 from A2.<\/p>\n

“Achieving our highest-ever rating from Moody’s is the ultimate validation of SFO’s financial strategy and long-term planning,” said SFO Director Mike Nakornkhet in a statement. “This milestone enables us to continue our investment in a world-class airport experience that is second to none.”<\/p>\n

SFO, a major gateway to Europe and Asia, is the largest airport in the Bay Area and the second busiest in California, after Los Angeles International Airport, said Moody’s.<\/p>\n

“Enplanement growth is supported by a strong local economy, which includes robust investment by technology companies and emergence of the artificial intelligence sector,” Kopmar said.<\/p>\n

The upgrade “also reflects continued progress on de-risking the airport’s sizable $12.5 billion capital plan, with committed pricing for 70% of the Terminal 3 West project anticipated in the next several months,” he said. <\/p>\n

“While the Bay Area market continues to lag the nation in traffic performance, SFO has outperformed regional competitors and has a service offering tilted toward premium travelers that we expect to drive growth in the high-end segment going forward,” he said.<\/p>\n

“The size, wealth and trajectory of the economy mitigates the airport’s projected high costs and leverage and supports the higher Aa3 rating,” Kopmar said.<\/p>\n

Though the airport’s leverage will increase significantly, Kopmar said the cost per enplanement will remain competitive to other international gateway airports, who are also undertaking<\/a> large capital programs.<\/p>\n

The airport anticipates $8.5 billion of additional debt issuance over the next 10 years to fund its capital improvement plan.<\/p>\n

S&P Global Ratings assigned an AA-minus to the proposed revenue bonds and affirmed an AA-minus long term rating and stable outlook last week. Fitch Ratings hasn’t released a report on the new issue, but affirmed an A-plus rating on the airport’s $8.9 billion in revenue bond debt and a stable outlook in January.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Improving liquidity and traffic were cited for a recent Moody’s Ratings upgrade at San Francisco International Airport, where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57383,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[28736,7,13877,28735,101,103,102,18758,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-57382","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-airport-revenue-bonds","tag-california","tag-public-finance","tag-ratings","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sell-side","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57382","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57382"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57382\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57383"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57382"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57382"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57382"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}