By Alan Ohnsman, Staff, Forbes; September 25, 2020
Brightline, the only private passenger rail service in the U.S., is moving ahead with an offering of up to $3.2 billion of tax-exempt bonds for a high-speed train line connecting Las Vegas to Southern California. The company also has a new plan to run trains directly into Los Angeles.
The tax-exempt debt from Florida-based Brightline Holdings is based on private-activity bond allocations of $2.4 billion from California and $800 million from Nevada to fund construction of the 260-mile line between the West Coast cities. The bonds are unrated and the coupon rate and expected yield won’t be set until marketing starts, the company said. Brightline has an additional $1 billion private activity bond allocation from the U.S. government that isn’t part of this offering.