Taylor Riggs

Health care investment banking shop Cain Brothers has hired a senior banker to help lead its distressed credit team.

Standard & Poor's has placed muni bond insurer Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp. on negative CreditWatch for significant concentration risk in its insured portfolio.

Standard & Poor's has placed muni bond insurer Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp. on negative CreditWatch for significant concentration risk in its insured portfolio.

Healthy bond insurers are not expected to return to the municipal world for at least two or three years, leaving investors without a safety net for the foreseeable future, analysts at Moody's Investors Service said.

Radian Group and its financial guaranty subsidiary, Radian Asset Assurance, has partnered with the National League of Cities to explore the formation of a what would be the first-ever public finance mutual bond insurance company.

Plunging interest rates are luring more issuers to market, encouraging market participants to believe muni volume for the final months of 2011 can increase from recent anemic levels.

Closing in on the one-year anniversary of its bankruptcy filing, Ambac Financial Group has filed a new reorganization plan that all parties involved have agreed on.

Low new-issue volume and active early redemption of debt contributed to a decline in the amount of outstanding municipal debt in the second quarter to $2.89 trillion.

The summer doldrums are officially over, as issuance in the municipal market is expected to surge this week.

MBIA Inc. has had strokes of luck lately, with the most recent positive developments coming from lawsuits filed against the company.

As it seeks to continually boost its muni finance operations, Piper Jaffray & Co. has opened new offices in Tennessee and Indiana and increased its head count.

After heavy criticism from investors, analysts and bond insurers over Standard & Poor's new bond insurance rating criteria, the agency is firing back in self-defense.

With Labor Day behind it, the municipal market will see a big surge in new deals this week, with estimated issuance rising to $4.65 billion, close to the weekly average this year.

Bond insurer Assured Guaranty Ltd. has a bone to pick with Standard & Poor's over the rating agency's new bond insurance rating criteria.

Despite a Labor Day holiday-shortened week, the municipal market could see new issuance almost double from last week.

Some analysts and investors — not to mention the bond insurers themselves — are reacting negatively to new bond insurance rating criteria issued by Standard & Poor's last week.

As rating agencies seek to provide more transparency and regain accountability on how they rate credits, Standard & Poor's has issued a report stating how it will suspend ratings for U.S. public finance issuers.

The municipal market can expect to see $1.2 billion in new issuance this week, down dramatically from last week's revised $4.42 billion as the market takes a rest before Labor Day.

Standard & Poor's has issued new bond insurance rating criteria, a much-anticipated move that could define whether muni bond insurers will ever regain their triple-A ratings.

Standard & Poor's has issued new bond insurance rating criteria, a much-anticipated move that could define whether muni bond insurers will ever regain their triple-A ratings.