{"id":437991,"date":"2026-09-16T19:10:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T19:10:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/437991\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T19:10:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T19:10:10","slug":"two-positive-rating-signals-buoy-corpus-christi-utility","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/437991\/","title":{"rendered":"Two positive rating signals buoy Corpus Christi utility"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>  <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"Image\" data-image-size=\"articleImage\" alt=\"Corpus Christi, Texas, shoreline\"  width=\"740\" height=\"456\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/1789585810_469_.jpeg\"\/>  The Texas city, which plans to sell $300 million of senior lien utility system revenue bonds, avoided further rating downgrades from S&amp;P and Fitch. <\/p>\n<p>Adobe Stock <\/p>\n<p>Ahead of a Corpus Christi utility system $300 million revenue bond sale, two rating agencies that issued multi-notch downgrades earlier this year sent positive signals on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>Processing Content<\/p>\n<p>S&amp;P Global Ratings ended a CreditWatch with negative implications review, and Fitch Ratings revised its outlook to stable from negative.<\/p>\n<p>Both affirmed their ratings, while warning of continued credit risks related to the drought-battered Texas city&#8217;s efforts to boost water supply over the longer term.<\/p>\n<p>S&amp;P had placed the utility on CreditWatch in May after downgrading the utility&#8217;s system&#8217;s rating <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bondbuyer.com\/news\/corpus-christi-water-woes-spark-s-p-rating-downgrades\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">two notches to A<\/a>. It affirmed the A rating Tuesday, assigning a negative outlook due to the system&#8217;s &#8220;exposure to project execution risk for identified supplemental water supply projects and governance risk associated with city council turnover every two years, which can meaningfully hinder strategic long-term water supply planning.&#8221;\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Despite recently improved water supply conditions due to summer rainfall events and the city council&#8217;s credit-supportive rate-setting practices, if the utility does not successfully diversify and supplement its water supply resources over the next two years to offset chronic drought risk, we could lower the rating,&#8221; S&amp;P said in a report.<\/p>\n<p>Fitch Ratings, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bondbuyer.com\/news\/fitch-cuts-corpus-christis-utility-system-rating-to-a-minus\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">dropped the system&#8217;s AA-minus rating<\/a> to A-minus with a negative outlook in June, affirmed that rating and revised the outlook to stable, saying it reflects &#8220;a meaningful reduction in near-term water demand curtailment risk following a significant improvement in water supply conditions, a key driver that is fundamental to operating and financial stability.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Long-term water supply development and related capital spending needs remain key credit considerations and are incorporated into the current rating,&#8221; the rating agency added.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>In <a href=\"https:\/\/www.corpuschristitx.gov\/news\/posts\/corpus-christi-receives-positive-credit-rating-actions-from-sp-global-ratings-and-fitch-ratings-ahead-of-300-million-utility-bond-sale\/\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">a statement<\/a> announcing the rating actions, the city said the system&#8217;s senior-lien revenue bonds will finance infrastructure and water supply initiatives. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The city remains focused on sound financial management while making long-term investments to support a reliable utility system and strengthen Corpus Christi&#8217;s water supply for the future,&#8221; the statement said.<\/p>\n<p>The city council gave final approval in July to water rate hikes effective Jan. 1 to support current and future debt, as well as water system operations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>BofA Securities was named as the lead underwriter for the utility deal, according to a May <a href=\"https:\/\/emma.msrb.org\/P11961087-P11496784-P11949553.pdf\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">voluntary disclosure notice<\/a> filed to the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board&#8217;s EMMA website.<\/p>\n<p>Summer rainfall, along with $1.1 billion of groundwater, wastewater reuse, and other projects aimed at producing 66 million gallons of water daily, enabled the city to revise its drought status from Stage 3 to <a href=\"https:\/\/stage1.corpuschristitx.gov\/\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Stage 1<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bondbuyer.com\/news\/corpus-christi-texas-eases-water-restrictions-again\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">postpone the onset<\/a> of a potential Level 1 emergency \u2014 indicating the regional water system is 180 days from supply not meeting demand \u2014 to September 2028 from a previous September 2027 projection.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The city council earlier this month once again <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bondbuyer.com\/news\/corpus-christi-rejects-desalination-project-again\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">voted against<\/a> a plan for Inner Harbor seawater desalination by rejecting an initial design-build contract for the project. \u00a0All nine council member seats, including the mayor, are on the Nov. 3 ballot.<\/p>\n<p>In July, Moody&#8217;s Ratings <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bondbuyer.com\/news\/moodys-confirms-corpus-christis-ratings-after-review\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">affirmed the<\/a> utility system&#8217;s A1 rating with a negative outlook, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bondbuyer.com\/news\/moodys-puts-corpus-christi-under-downgrade-review-again\" class=\"Link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">ending a review it launched in April<\/a> for a possible further downgrade after lowering the rating in December. \u00a0 <\/p>\n<p>Corpus Christi Water, a city agency, is the primary water supplier for a seven-county region. About $1.5 billion of utility system debt was outstanding as of Sept. 30, 2025.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas city, which plans to sell $300 million of senior lien utility system revenue bonds, avoided further&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437992,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[1003,155,157,156,3913,22093,27,3216,22092],"class_list":["post-437991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corpus-christi","tag-climate-change","tag-corpus-christi","tag-corpus-christi-headlines","tag-corpus-christi-news","tag-ratings","tag-revenue-bonds","tag-texas","tag-utilities","tag-water-bonds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}