Far West

LOS ANGELES — Common Bond Capital Partners LLC, a five-month-old San Diego-based firm targeting distressed municipal bonds, has hired a public finance expert who specializes in structured financing to round out its team.

SAN FRANCISCO — California's nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office released a report Friday on Gov. Jerry Brown's May Revise budget, calling the governor's economic and revenue forecast reasonable but questioning how much the state will reap from the end of redevelopment.

WASHINGTON — The Governmental Accounting Standards Board released a guide last week designed to help taxpayers and others glean useful information from school districts' financial statements.

The National Association of Bond Lawyers and the American Bar Association tax-exempt financing committee are urging the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service to develop guidance on the definition of issue price for tax-exempt bonds, Build America Bonds and other direct-pay tax credit bonds.

In American ports, the expansion of the Panama Canal is the elephant in the room. East Coast and southern U.S. ports see the Panamanian expansion, allowing it to handle larger ships by the middle of the decade, as their chance to woo business away from the Port of Los Angeles.

Financial regulators on Thursday defended the practice of settling federal charges brought against financial firms without requiring them to admit they did anything wrong.

House Ways and Means Committee chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., and other Republican leaders hope by summer to have a broad framework for comprehensive tax reform so that they can fast-track it next year.

Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Wenatchee, Wash.’s unlimited-tax general obligation bond rating to Ba2 from A3 on Monday because the city will allow a local events center to default on debt the city agreed to back.

In a letter to a small Colorado daily newspaper, the developer of a Sparks, Nev., shopping center in technical default on its bonds tried to explain financial issues surrounding the Nevada project while pitching Eagle, Colo., residents on a retail project he is planning there.

The Nevada Treasurer’s Office completed a $70 million highway revenue refunding bond sale that will result in savings of about $6 million in its existing debt service payments, deputy chief debt manager Lori Chatwood said in a news release.