Hunton Andrews Kurth Advises The Empire District Electric Company d/b/a Liberty on $306 Million Offering of Securitized Utility Tariff Bonds, Series 2024A

Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP acted as counsel to The Empire District Electric Company d/b/a Liberty (“Liberty”) on an SEC-registered offering of $306 million aggregate principal amount of Securitized Utility Tariff Bonds, Series 2024A (the “Bonds”) by Empire District Bondco, LLC, as “Issuing Entity”, a special purpose entity, wholly-owned by Liberty, as sponsor, depositor and initial servicer.

Liberty is engaged, generally, in the business of generating, purchasing, transmitting, distributing, and selling electricity in portions of Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. The Bonds were sold pursuant to a financing order issued by the Missouri Public Service Commission. The Bond proceeds will be used to (i) pay expenses of issuance and (ii) purchase the securitized utility tariff property from Liberty. In accordance with the financing order, Liberty intends to use the ultimate proceeds it receives from the sale of the securitized utility tariff property to repay intercompany borrowings its owes to Liberty Utilities Co. that were used to recover (i) the qualified extraordinary costs incurred by Liberty in connection with the anomalous weather event Winter Storm Uri and (ii) the energy transition costs incurred by Liberty in connection with its retirement of the Asbury coal-powered generation plant, each as approved in the financing order.

The Hunton Andrews Kurth team included Michael F. Fitzpatrick, Jr., Adam O’Brian, Brendan P. Harney, Michelle G. Chan and Monika M. Dziewa.  Jason W. Harbour assisted with certain bankruptcy advice, Shawn Patrick Regan and Kate Perkins assisted with certain constitutional law matters, Leslie A. Okinaka provided ERISA advice and George Howell, Anna Knecht Page and Zachary Roop provided tax advice.