Wells Fargo Securities Supports Montana State University Expansion as Enrollment Reaches Record Highs

NEW YORK – Wells Fargo Securities, the investment banking and capital markets business of Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC), announced today that it served as sole underwriter in the recent sale of $44.8 million in bonds issued by Montana State University (MSU) to pay for the design and construction of a new residence hall at MSU’s Bozeman campus.

Construction of the new residence hall comes as a record-setting number of students are enrolling at MSU. In contrast with declining enrollment at universities nationwide since 2010, MSU’s enrollment has steadily increased for the past 10 years, with enrollment records being set nine times since 2009. Enrollment at the Bozeman campus saw a 14‑percent increase between 2013 and 2017 and now totals 16,703 students.

“As enrollment continues to increase at Montana State University, Wells Fargo Securities is proud to play a part in the expansion of the MSU campus by serving as underwriter for the issuance of the university’s residence hall bonds,” said Stratford Shields, head of Public Finance at Wells Fargo Securities.

The university expects construction on the new 480-bed residence hall to begin in May, with completion in 2020.

“Montana State University has a wonderful story to tell,” said Laura Humberger, MSU’s associate vice president for financial services. “We appreciate the work by the teams from Wells Fargo Securities, Dorsey & Whitney, and North Slope Capital in helping us translate our story into lower interest rates than we anticipated. In the coming decades, thousands of students will benefit from the low interest rates the team achieved today.”

Wells Fargo Securities structured the transaction with serial bonds that amortize from 2019 through 2039 and term bonds due in 2043, 2045, and 2047. All-in interest cost for MSU was 3.65 percent with an average life of about 19 years. Strong investor demand pushed total orders to $227.4 million, resulting in oversubscription of most maturities and oversubscription of 5.1 times in aggregate, and tightening of spreads by two to nine basis points on most maturities.

Wells Fargo Securities, its affiliates, and their predecessors have provided investment banking services to MSU since 1993, and since 2004, have led all of MSU’s public market financings, totaling more than $300 million. Wells Fargo also serves the students and faculty of MSU through an ATM on the Bozeman campus.

Wells Fargo has a long history of commitment to higher education and serves hundreds of institutions and endowments nationwide. In 2016, Wells Fargo raised $16.1 billion in capital for U.S. colleges and universities. Wells Fargo Securities and an affiliate also traded in the secondary market $4.4 billion in tax-exempt bonds and $1.6 billion in taxable bonds issued by colleges and universities. In addition, the Wells Fargo Foundation is among the largest financial contributors to education in the U.S. In 2017, it awarded $13.4 million to 571 educational programs and schools nationwide.

The finance team for the bond sale also included North Slope Capital Advisors as financial advisor and Dorsey & Whitney as bond counsel.

About Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo & Company (NYSE: WFC) is a diversified, community-based financial services company with $1.9 trillion in assets. Wells Fargo’s vision is to satisfy our customers’ financial needs and help them succeed financially. Founded in 1852 and headquartered in San Francisco, Wells Fargo provides banking, investments, mortgage, and consumer and commercial finance through more than 8,300 locations, 13,000 ATMs, the internet (wellsfargo.com) and mobile banking, and has offices in 42 countries and territories to support customers who conduct business in the global economy. With approximately 263,000 team members, Wells Fargo serves one in three households in the United States. Wells Fargo & Company was ranked No. 25 on Fortune’s 2017 rankings of America’s largest corporations. News, insights and perspectives from Wells Fargo are also available at Wells Fargo Stories.

Wells Fargo Securities is the trade name for certain securities-related capital markets and investment banking services of Wells Fargo & Company and its subsidiaries, including Wells Fargo Bank, N.A., acting through its Municipal Products Group.