Build America Offers Insurance on Muni Center

Build America Mutual Assurance Company, the startup bond insurer launched in July 2012, will offer its insurance on secondary market trades through alternative trading system TMC Bonds.

The move comes a day after Assured Guaranty, which established a relationship with TMC in 2011, began offering insurance from its municipal-only insurer on the trading platform.

TMC bonds, originally known as TheMuniCenter, is a fixed-income electronic marketplace for both buy-side and sell-side participants in the muni space. The platform facilitated 31% of all inter-dealer trades in municipals during the third quarter of 2013, according to TMC.

“Our goal is to make BAM municipal bond insurance more broadly accessible, and we believe that electronic execution available on TMC Bonds will accomplish that,” Sean McCarthy, chief executive officer of Build America, said in a press release Tuesday.

Traders, institutional investors and retail buyers can now purchase BAM insurance for bonds they are trading on TMC, according to the release. Users can also add insurance to qualifying bonds that they already hold, McCarthy said.

Traders will also be able to obtain obligor disclosure briefs for each BAM-insured municipal bond. ODBs provide credit information on the bonds, including issue and series name, gross par insured by CUSIP number and other financial information.

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