CHICAGO -- Chicago has retired $10.8 million of defaulted Chicago-Calumet Skyway bonds through a court-approved tender offer, the city's finance department said yesterday.
The city paid an average price of $867.28 per $1,000 face value for a total purchase price of $9.4 million, said John Holden, a spokesman for the department.
An agreement between the city and the bondholders for the tender offer was approved by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in August. That agreement, following the city's court-ordered placement of $9.4 million in the Skyway sinking fund, triggered a 20-day tender offer period last month and the first-ever redemption of the bonds by the city.
Ken Purcell, an associate attorney at Winston & Strawn, the law firm representing bondholders in the class-action litigation, said while a face value of $38 million of the total $101 million of bonds was tendered, only slightly more than a fourth of the bonds were retired with the funds the city had available.
In a statement, City Comptroller Walter Knorr called the bond purchase a "one-time event" that was approved by the court. Mr. Holden said the fiscal 1992 budget proposed by Mayor Richard Daley last month does not contain an apprpriation for the Skyway sinking fund.
The retirement of the bonds now leaves nearly $90.2 million of bond principal due to mature in 1995 outstanding. Chicago defaulted on the bonds, sold to build a 7.8 mile toll road connecting the city's southeast side with the northwest corner of Indiana, in 1963
