Moody's Investors Service analysts Tim Blake and Tom Aaron will address past and current challenges related to U.S. pensions at the April 9 meeting of the Philadelphia Area Municipal Analyst Society.
Aaron, who is a Moody's pension expert, will review technical aspects of pensions and Blake is slated to review how pension benefits are impacting the public finance landscape. The event is scheduled to begin at 12:30 p.m. at Janney Capital Markets on 1717 Arch Street in Philadelphia and last until 4:30 p.m. with a lunch break included.
The pension forum comes on the heels of the first annual Janney Municipal Bond Market Credit Analyst Survey, in which credit analysts picked public pensions as the most important issue facing the municipal bond market.
"Even though the rating agencies have started to incorporate pension obligations and a lack of funding into ratings more now than in the past, I think the rating agencies are being too optimistic about the chances of future pension reform," said Tom Kozlik, director and credit analyst at Janney Capital Markets. "While there are exceptions, for the most part I am not seeing issuers or political actors taking the idea of pension reform seriously."
Persons interested in attending the April 9 PhAMAS meeting should contact Kozlik at
