The U.S. Virgin Islands has been locked out of America’s bond market for years as it wrestles with the same economic forces that drove its bigger neighbor, Puerto Rico, into financial ruin, Bloomberg News reported. Now, with a credit rating cut deeply into junk and under pressure to raise cash as a tourism drought stings its economy, the U.S. territory is seeking to sell nearly $1 billion in debt this month by extending an unusual promise to investors: the bonds will be repaid even if it goes bankrupt. The step, pitched to the island by investment bank Ramirez & Co. and a New York advisory firm, is similar to a tactic used by Puerto Rico and Chicago to pledge a big chunk of tax collections directly to public corporations that pay off debt backed by the revenue. That was intended to assure investors that the funds wouldn’t be diverted even if the financial strains worsened, reducing the risk to bondholders and driving down their borrowing costs. In the case of the Virgin Islands, it’s pledging the nearly $250 million a year it receives each year from the U.S. government, the territory’s cut of the excise taxes on rum it ships to the mainland. The bond offering, set to be priced as soon as Thursday, will provide a major test of the $3.9 trillion municipal bond market, where investors have continued to snap up riskier securities as benchmark yields hold near the lowest in decades. That’s allowed some borrowers hard hit by the nation’s economic collapse to easily raise cash. The Virgin Islands’ bonds are using a so-called bankruptcy remote structure. That involves steering the money to a newly created corporation and providing a legal pledge that the cash won’t be siphoned off even if the government is forced to restructure its debts in federal bankruptcy court. Bondholders have reason for skepticism. Lisa Washburn, a managing director for Municipal Market Analytics, said such a structure is not necessarily “bankruptcy proof,” though it would likely give investors a better negotiating position. Even though Puerto Rico’s bonds securitized by its sales taxes weren’t walled off from bankruptcy, owners recouped as much as 93 cents on the dollar, more than other creditors stand to receive.
