by Mindy Aguon

Guam - The Guam International Airport Authority will be the first to make presentations to ratings authority Standard & Poor's this week. On Wednesday S&P will receive a familiarization tour of the airport property and an extensive presentation on the history of GIAA and past and future projects.

Airport executive manager Chuck Ada says the pitch will be made to show that GIAA is capable of a stronger rating. "What we want to do is show them that our financial portfolio is strong enough for the ratings that we deserve and we can, in turn, go out to the bond market and refinance our bonds this coming summer," he explained.

The airport is looking at the possibility of refinancing $150 million in bonds that could equate to $50 million for capital improvement projects. The other option is to utilize lower interest rates to save about $2 million dollars in debt service. Either way, Ada says how much money the airport will save will depend on the rating from S&P.

Part of the presentation will include the airport's financial portfolio. With a multimillion dollar airport specialty retail concessionaire request for proposal lingering, questions have surfaced about whether the lack of an award of the contract will have a negative impact on the airport's bond rating. "Not at all," said Ada. "As a matter of fact, I think it's going to actually help us with the bond rating because it's been quite some time since its been in place and with the renewal of the contract, once its awarded, it will actually bring in more revenue to the airport so it will actually help us again with regards to our financial portfolio."

The airport is on a month-to-month contract with DFS Guam to continue the specialty retail concessions until the board awards the contract. Formal interviews with the four bidders were held back in December and an evaluation team was established to review the proposals and present their findings to management who will then make a presentation to the board. A presentation was expected last month, but Ada says there have been some delays in the process.

"There are concerns with regards to the contract from the community so we wanted to make sure with our legal counsel that prior to the evaluations, all those items were addressed as opposed to mid way through the evaluation process so once we got those things ironed out that's when we proceeded with the evaluation of the submitted proposals," he said.

Whether those evaluations will be done in time for the board's meeting scheduled for the last week of February remains to be seen. S&P officials are also expected to meet with the Guam Power Authority and the Guam Waterworks Authority and the port authority during their weeklong visit on the island.