Nuveen Investments Provides Update on Progress Refinancing Auction-Rate Preferred Shares

Business Wire, July 9, 2008

More Than $4 Billion of Refinancings Completed, Announced or in Late-Stage Planning

Resolving ARPS Issue Remains a Top Priority

CHICAGO -- Nuveen Investments, a leading global provider of investment services to institutions and high-net-worth investors, today provided an update on the progress made in refinancing its closed-end funds' auction-rate preferred shares (ARPs). Since April, seven Nuveen taxable funds have issued redemption notices for $1.7 billion of auction-rate preferred shares, 41 Nuveen municipal funds have been approved to create approximately $1.0 billion of tender option bond trusts (TOBs) to refinance preferreds, and four Nuveen municipal funds have announced today their intent to commence the first private offerings of Variable Rate Demand Preferreds (VRDP), tapping into approximately $500 million of up to $1.75 billion of liquidity capacity being provided to Nuveen by a leading financial institution. All of these developments have been announced previously. Additionally, four taxable funds are announcing they have arranged new debt financing that, when completed, would enable the funds to redeem an aggregate of approximately $1.0 billion of currently outstanding ARPs.

"We are pleased to continue moving forward on refinancing the auction-rate preferred shares of our closed-end funds (CEFs), yet there is still much work to be done on behalf of our preferred and common shareholders," said Bill Adams, Executive Vice President, Nuveen Investments. "To that end, solving this issue remains a top priority. Further, we want to continue to keep investors and their advisors informed on the progress we have made as well as the issues that remain outstanding as we address this industry-wide challenge."

Progress on Redeeming Taxable ARPs

The overriding goal in refinancing the ARPs in all of Nuveen's CEFs has been to lower the relative costs of leverage for each fund while providing liquidity at par for the preferred shareholders. With the approval of the funds' Board of Trustees, Nuveen's CEFs have taken a number of meaningful steps toward accomplishing this goal. Beginning in April, several taxable CEFs started issuing redemption notices totaling $1.7 billion for their ARPs. Redemptions were announced for the following taxable closed-end funds:

Nuveen Multi-Strategy Income and Growth Fund (JPC)
Nuveen Tax-Advantaged Dividend Growth Fund (JTD)
Nuveen Real Estate Income Fund (JRS)
Nuveen Tax-Advantaged Total Return Strategy Fund (JTA)
Nuveen Multi-Strategy Income and Growth Fund 2 (JQC)
Nuveen Floating Rate Income Fund (JFR)
Nuveen Floating Rate Income Opportunity Fund (JRO)

Additionally, the funds' Board of Trustees has approved refinancing plans and expects to redeem approximately $1 billion of auction-rate preferred securities for four additional taxable CEFs, subject to completion of final documentation for new debt financing arranged by the funds and other factors. The Nuveen Diversified Dividend & Income Fund (JDD), Nuveen Quality Preferred Income Fund (JTP), Nuveen Quality Preferred Income Fund 2 (JPS) and Nuveen Quality Preferred Income Fund 3 (JHP) anticipate issuing their partial redemption notices by mid- to late July.

With the funds that have previously issued redemption notices, this brings the total amount of completed and targeted redemptions by Nuveen taxable closed-end funds to approximately $2.7 billion, or 63%, of the $4.3 billion of taxable ARPs outstanding for these funds at the beginning of February.

Progress on Redeeming Municipal ARPs

On June 11, Nuveen's municipal CEFs announced that their Board of Trustees had approved the use of tender option bonds as a part of the plan to refinance their auction-rate preferred shares. At that time, an initial group of 41 funds was established to create approximately $1 billion of TOBs to refinance outstanding ARPs. On June 26, 13 of these funds issued par redemption notices for a portion of their auction-rate securities aggregating approximately $580 million. The funds issuing partial redemption notices were:

Premium Income Municipal Fund (NPI)
Performance Plus Municipal Fund (NPP)
Investment Quality Municipal Fund (NQM)
Quality Income Municipal Fund (NQU)
Premier Municipal Income Fund (NPF)
Premium Income Municipal Fund 2 (NPM)
Premium Income Municipal Fund 4 (NPT)
Dividend Advantage Municipal Fund (NAD)
Dividend Advantage Municipal Fund 3 (NZF)
Insured Municipal Opportunity Fund (NIO)
California Dividend Advantage Municipal Fund (NAC)
California Dividend Advantage Municipal Fund 3 (NZH)
New York Quality Income Municipal Fund (NUN)

On May 21, Nuveen announced that it had arranged for an initial commitment of up to $1.75 billion of liquidity support from a major financial institution for the issuance of a new preferred security--VRDP. This new instrument is designed to replace the ARPS currently used as leverage in Nuveen's municipal CEFs, with the potential for use in refinancing the ARPs that remain outstanding for Nuveen's taxable CEFs.