When I spoke at City Council several meetings ago, behind me in line was J.B. Reilly. He told the Council that the water deal was good for Allentown, and that we better take the deal, while the taking was good. I thought of the old E.F. Hutton commercial, when everyone in the dining room goes quiet, to hear the oracle. Of course what he was saying was not true, time is not of the essence with any water offer; But, he is a genuine tycoon. Council President Guridy should have been offended that Pawlowski would send Reilly to lecture them, but both he and The Morning Call were impressed. It's not cheap to hire Reilly for the evening. The City just sold $224 million of municipal bonds to finance Reilly's projects. Two weeks ago, Reilly closed on the former 1st National Bank on the northeast corner of the square. The building is being prepped for demolition. Although the City just approved several more parcels for the NIZ, don't expect them to float more bonds for the junior varsity.
Again, the irony is that the people on council who carp about "rich white guys" building malls and drawing people to the suburbs are the same ones making sure that a "rich white guy" (Reilly) gets rich off the current scheme.
ReplyDeleteI suppose we'll also make another "rich white guy" even richer with the water sale. And Alan Jennings will stay silent.
If it wasn't so tragic, it would be funny.
Bonds which are rated B generally lack characteristics of the desirable investment. Assurance of interest and principal payments or of maintenance of other terms of the contract over any long period of time may be small.
ReplyDeleteBaa2 is right next to junk bond status.
For those of us who were unable to attend that meeting----Mr Riley, would you please be kind enough to lay out your position in written form for the blog of your choice, or the newspaper.
ReplyDeleteThank you Mr Riley.
Riley is the new Snelling.
ReplyDeleteReilly will never comment on a direct question in writing. Please. He was doing the great one a favor to come down and speak to the minions.
ReplyDeleteAnother deal that will not be around for ever. Look at the arena. It was a great deal the funds got on these bonds.
The current 10 year treasury rates is around 1.64% and the 30 year is 2.81%.
The arena bonds came out at 4.78% and that is tax free if my understanding correct. So effectively that is almost an equivalent 10% taxable return.
Great job PFM. How much did you make? No BS Shearer. You are a master of parsing words and concepts while side stepping answers.
Anyone interested should look PFM up in the Urban Dictionary.
It is a much more accurate definition of this acronym. Hint "Pure f...... magic".
Appropriate to call JB tycoon. From the looks of current events, he and his partners probably soon will own most of downtown. Isn't that what a tycoon is?
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