Behind the Deal: Great Hearts America – Texas
Investor Interest Supports Expansion Project for Sustained Enrollment
Great Hearts Texas is a network of state-chartered public schools providing an honors level liberal arts curriculum in the tradition of the finest independent private schools. Presently, Great Hearts Texas operates 16 schools on 12 campuses, as well as a Texas online school, serving over 12,000+ students, with a waitlist of approximately 4,850 students as of 12/31/2023. Their mission is to cultivate the minds and hearts of students through the pursuit of Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
To meet the overwhelming enrollment demand, Great Hearts Texas needed to finance the expansion of the Arlington campus to add an upper school for the 2025-26 school year and finance the acquisition of land and the construction of a new facility for the Irving lower school – replacing a currently leased facility. In addition, the school needed to fund a debt service reserve fund, capital interest account, and pay for the costs of issuance for the 2024 Bonds.
Baird’s National Charter School Finance team served as sole managing underwriter on the $48,095,000 Baa3 financing with a 3-year call for Great Hearts Texas. On the day of pricing, Baird’s salesforce received some resistance to the 3-year call, but still received orders from 17 different accounts across the 5 terms we ran in 10, 15, 20, 25 and 30 years. Our underwriting desk saw oversubscription where we had the most bonds, max yield in 25 and 30 years, allowing an opportunity for an aggressive reprice of 10 basis points (0.10%) to finalize the issue.
