CHICAGO - The Illinois State Toll Highway Authority Board late Thursday selected Public Sector Group as its financial adviser to help draft plans to pay for the construction of an estimated $2.4 billion of toll roads, according to authority officials.
The board selected the firm in an 8-to-0 vote.
Authority officials recommended Public Sector Group to the board based on the firm's work on a successful $387 million refunding the authority sold in March, according to Nicholas Jannite, the authority's finance manager.
Public Sector Group principal Phillip Peloquin, a former Merrill Lynch & Co. executive, said no timetable has been set to complete the analysis.
Peloquin said, "What we've been hired to do is to help the tollway figure out exactly what the need for money is and when various amounts of money will be borrowed. We are at a preliminary stage."
Peloquin said his firm will be "looking very closely" at options to raise additional revenues, including fees to permit the laying of fiber optic cable on tollway land.
Authority officials have said that the success of the March refunding won the firm a recommendation to work out financing plans for four newly authorized tollway projects.
Jannite said he believes the authority will finance the four projects with four bond issues. He said the first issue is expected to be sold in late 1994.
Jannite said that Public Sector Group would not automatically be the financial adviser on all four bond issues the authority expects to sell.
However, Robert Hickman, the authority's executive director, said earlier this month that the firm "would have a leg up" on participating in the issues.
Peloquin began the financial advisory firm in 1991. Last year, the firm ranked 18th nationwide among financial advisers, with four issues totaling $1.5 billion, according to Securities Data Co.
The Illinois General Assembly last month passed a resolution permitting the authority to extend toll roads in the northeastern part of the state. The four authorized projects are:
* An 18-mile northern extension of Illinois Route 53 into Lake County at an estimated cost of $650 million.
* Another 24-mile extension of Route 53 north to the Wisconsin border at an estimated cost of $720 million.
* A 12.5-mile southern extension of the North-south Tollway near Joliet at an estimated cost of $525 million.
* Another 16-mile extension of the North-South Tollway south near Peotone at an estimated cost of $570 million.
Jannite said that engineering, environmental, and traffic studies, as well as acquisition of right-of-way, need to be done before the authority can develop detailed road-building plans.
