Selection of underwriters for a $937 million revenue bond issue to finance an expansion of Chicago's McCormick Place convention center will not be done until next year, according to John Schmidt, chairman of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority.
Mr. Schmidt said because the bonds cannot be issued until after July 1, the effective date for levying a package of taxds to back them, "there was no great pressure" to select the firms this year.
In October, he said the board could make a decision on underwriters as early as its meeting today.
Mr. Schmidt said the board could act on recommendations from its finance committee at its January or February meeting. James Bolin, chairman of the finance committee and a vice president at Merrill Lynch, said a short list of firms would probably be asked to make oral presentations to the committee "sometime in the not too distant future."
The authority's request for qualifications for underwriters drew responses from 46 national, regional, minority, and women-owned firms.
