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[CNJRoss]

Progressive Railroading 7/23/20

 

Virgin Trains advances financing for Vegas high-speed rail

 

 

Clark County, Nevada Commissioners earlier this week took steps to advance financing of Virgin Trains’ proposed high-speed rail project that would link Las Vegas and Southern California. 

 

The commission unanimously approved findings made by the Nevada Department of Business and Industry related to the financing of the project being proposed by DesertXpress Enterprises LLC, Clark County officials said in a press release. DesertXpress Enterprises is an affiliate of Virgin Trains USA.

 

In 2019, Virgin Trains applied to the Nevada Department of Business and Industry for the right to sell $200 million worth of private activity bonds. With the commission's approval, the rail company can now leverage as much as $1.2 billion for the project, the Las Vegas Sun reported last year.

 

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[CNJRoss]

Las Vegas (NV) Review Journal, 7/24/20
 

Nevada OKs $200M in bonds for Vegas-to-SoCal high-speed train

 

 

After being docked for around 15 years, the long-talked about high-speed rail line between Las Vegas and Southern California appears ready to leave the station.

 

The state Department of Business and Industry on Friday unanimously approved $200 million in tax exempt bonds to go toward Virgin Trains USA’s planned high-speed train project.

 

“This project is a long time coming to Nevada and I’m pleased to take this step forward to bring this vision to reality and bring additional jobs to our state,” Gov. Steve Sisolak said in a statement. ...

 

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[CNJRoss]

Nevada Current, 7/24/20
 

High speed train’s long and winding road to Victorville nearing reality

 

 

Nevada’s Board of Finance, led by Gov. Steve Sisolak, today unanimously voted to allocate $200 million in tax-exempt private activity bonds to a high-speed train between Victorville and Las Vegas.  

 

The vote allows Xpress West to parlay the $200 million and $600 million in bonds from California by four to one. An additional $1 billion allocated by the U.S. Department of Transportation will give the company the ability to sell $4.2 billion in bonds.  

 

“My father and I have been working on this project for over 15 years,” said Anthony Marnell III, who said an agreement has been reached to extend the train from Victorville to Cucamonga, near San Diego.

 

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[CNJRoss]

Forbes, 7/24/20

 

Los Angeles-To-Las Vegas High-Speed Train Wins $200 Million Nevada Bond Allocation

 

 

XpressWest, a high-speed rail line that will connect Southern California to Las Vegas, won $200 million of private activity bonds from Nevada, a critical final public allocation that allows the company owned by Wall Street investor Wes Edens to raise an additional $800 million for the project.

 

The Nevada State Board of Finance’s approval for the project, a unit of Edens’ Florida-based Brightline passenger rail service, comes after California awarded it $600 million of private activity bonds in April. XpressWest can sell four times the value of the awards as tax-exempt bonds to private investors, meaning it’s now lined up $3.2 billion of funding from the two states. Including a $1 billion U.S. Department of Transportation allocation in March, XpressWest has lined up $4.2 billion of the 170-mile rail line’s total $5 billion construction cost.

 

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[CNJRoss]

Bloomberg 10/14/20
 

Fortress Delays Pricing of $3.2 Billion Vegas Train Deal

 

 

Company has been holding investor calls since late September

 

No new pricing date has been set yet, according to sources

 

 

Fortress Investment Group delayed the pricing of $3.2 billion of municipal bonds to build a passenger railroad between southern California and Las Vegas, a sign that investors were hesitant to finance such a speculative project at a time of deep economic uncertainty.

The company boosted the equity contribution to the project by $500 million, among other changes, according to updated documents released Wednesday.

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[lunarwhite]

Plans to begin construction have been postponed due to failure to sell the bonds.

https://trn.trains.c...y-to-sell-bonds

[CNJRoss]

RT&S 11/3/20
 

Brightline West high-speed rail project now put on hold

 

 

2020 is not the year for many things, and you can add Brightline West to the list. The high-speed rail line connecting southern California to Las Vegas was supposed to break ground in the coming weeks, but the announcement of a delayed $2.4 billion bond offering has put everything on hold.

 

Brightline blamed the schedule change on market conditions due to COVID-19 and the fact that 2020 is an election year. The company insists there is still investor interest to make the bond sale happen, and says there was a deal in place, but it would have been restrictive.

 

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[CNJRoss]

KSNV-TV, Las Vegas, NV  6/22/21
 

High-speed rail delay: Bond sale postponed until 2022

 

 

LAS VEGAS (KSNV) — Brightline West, the private company planning to build a high-speed rail link between Las Vegas and California, has postponed a bond sale to finance the rail system until at least 2022.

 

The bonds in question are state-based private activity bonds; Brightline was going to sell hundreds of millions of dollars worth of bonds from both Nevada and California.

 

"The Brightline West team has made significant progress during the past year as California and Nevada dealt with the historic pandemic. We are working with a number of partners and have great support in Nevada and California. COVID has impacted just about everyone, including our cooperating agencies, and as a result we've shifted our timeline for this request to 2022," Brightline spokesperson Ben Porritt tells me.  . . .

 

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