As Florida Governor Ron DeSantis continues to attempt to dissolve the Reedy Creek Improvement District, bond trading has spiked, the Orlando Business Journal reports.
Reedy Creek Improvement District is mostly run by Walt Disney World Resort. Since Disney condemned Florida’s controversial “Don’t Say Gay” bill in March, DeSantis has been trying to punish the company by dissolving the district. He has signed the bill into law for dissolving the district, but it won’t be dissolved until next year, and residents of the surrounding counties are suing him over the bill.
Reedy Creek has approximately $1 billion in bond debt and it’s unclear who will take responsibility for that if the district goes away. Amidst this uncertainty, bond trade activity has doubled and tripled since DeSantis signed the bill.
OBJ provides the example that there were 792 Reedy Creek ad valorem and utility bond transactions in April and May. This is up by 141.5% from the 328 bonds traded during the same two-month period in 2021.
The amount of Reedy Creek bond transactions in this time period is 31.8% more than all bonds traded from January through March 2022. Transaction amounts range from $5,000 to $15 million.
Here are how many Reedy Creek bond transactions have taken place each month this year:
- January: 246
- February: 136
- March: 219
- April: 419
- May: 373
“The legal change means the value of the bonds is subject to speculation in a way that’s atypical for such bonds,” Jacob Schumer, a government law expert and attorney with Shepard, Smith, Kohlmyer & Hand PA told OBJ. “With such speculation comes investors who take a more negative view of the bonds, and also speculators who believe they can obtain good bonds at a discount. It would not surprise me if Reedy Creek bonds trade at an abnormally high volume until the legal matter is settled, with spikes in activity when there is major news on the legal front.”
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