Western Minnesota Municipal Power Agency, Missouri River Energy Services and its members recently celebrated a recently completed bond sale that will save millions in future debt service payments.
The $27.155 million bond sale, held on Sept. 30, 2025, drew overwhelming investor interest. In total, there were more than $118 million in bids, more than four times the amount offered.
Why so much interest in the bonds? According to Chris Olson, MRES vice president and chief financial officer, it comes down to WMMPA’s strong financial standing.
With Aa2 and AA- credit ratings from Moody’s Ratings and Fitch Ratings respectively, investors saw the bonds as a safe and attractive opportunity.
“This was one of the best transactions I’ve ever seen from a savings perspective,” said Mike Berwanger, financial advisor with PFM Financial Advisors LLC, who worked closely with WMMPA and MRES on the deal.
The overall transaction included both a bond refunding and the termination of an interest rate swap, which locked-in an extremely low interest rate in 2020 and resulted in a net all-in True Interest Cost of just 1.215 percent for the transaction, far below today’s interest rate market.
That translated into net present value savings of about $9.8 million, or 28.05 percent of the refunded bonds, significantly above the five percent minimum savings threshold set by the WMMPA and MRES boards.
Olson emphasized that WMMPA and MRES only pursue bond refunding opportunities when there’s a clear financial benefit. “We are very thoughtful and deliberate about pursuing these transactions,” he said. “If there are savings to be had, we act, and this time, the results exceeded expectations.”
The MRES and WMMPA boards officially ratified the bond sale in early October, with signing on Oct. 9 and closing on Oct. 15, 2025.
After months of preparation, the successful sale marks a major financial milestone for MRES and WMMPA. “It was a long process,” Olson noted, “but it went incredibly well.”
WMMPA has a formal relationship through which WMMPA finances the construction and acquisition of the generation and transmission facilities for members of MRES. MRES staff provides the administrative services to manage WMMPA's portfolios. WMMPA's membership primarily includes the Minnesota members of MRES.
