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Already facing a host of financial worries, Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s administration could be stuck with a nearly $200 million tab as a result of betting heavily on risky interest-rate “swaps” under former Mayor Richard M. Daley.
The deals required the city to maintain a certain credit rating, but the rating has fallen since the Daley administration made them, putting the city at risk.
The financial institutions involved could terminate the deals and demand immediate payment if the ratings agency Moody’s Investor Service drops the city’s credit rating again — which it has warned it will do unless Chicago’s underfunded pensions are dramatically reformed.
Taxpayers could end up owing bankers and other financial institutions, including Wells Fargo and Loop Capital Markets, $110.4 million if Moody’s drops its rating for Chicago by one notch, according to documents reviewed by the Chicago Sun-Times. Falling two more levels could cost the city another $88.5 million.
