Eileen Kinsella
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Metropolitan Museum of Art
Photo: Carlos Delgado via Wikimedia Commons
The Metropolitan Museum of Art hopes to sell $250 million worth of bonds in order to fund various infrastructre improvements over the next decade, according to Moody’s Investor Service. (See Gut Renovation for Met’s Modern and Contemporary Wing.)
Moody’s gave the Met the financial equivalent of a thumbs up, assigning the bonds its top, triple-A rating. Moody’s said the rating and outlook reflects the Met’s “exemplary brand recognition as one of the world’s largest art museums, with excellent prospects for continued strong donor support, and diverse revenue streams supporting favorable cash flow.”
According to a research report from Moody’s, “the outlook is stable.” Further, the Met’s “proposed increase in debt incorporates its fiscal discipline around capital investment, with no identified borrowing plans beyond this issuance, strong and growing philanthropic support, and healthy growth of wealth and liquidity.”
Museum director Thomas Campbell recently told Vanity Fair that the institution was about to undertake “the most high-profile cultural building project in New York over the next ten years.” (For more on the VF article, see Is Glenn Lowry Leaving MoMA for Sotheby’s?)
