Phil Fischer has retired as head of municipal bond research at Bank of America, the bank confirmed on Monday.
The municipals team is now being led by municipal research strategists Yingchen Li and Ian Rogow, reporting to Michael Maras, head of global credit, commodities and equity derivatives research, spokesperson Melissa Anchan told The Bond Buyer.
Fischer had been head of municipal research at the firm since 2013. He had previously worked at Merrill Lynch for 22 years, from 1987 to 2009, as head of muni research. Before that he was at Salomon Brothers and at Citicorp and had been a professor at SUNY Albany and at the University of Oregon. He started out working as a chemical engineer at Mobil.
Fischer is a managing member of
Fischer has been recognized by Smith’s Research and by Institutional Investor as an all-star municipal strategist. He is also the author of “Investing in Municipal Bonds,” (McGraw-Hill, January 2013). He has a bachelor’s degree from Oregon State University, a J.D. from Loyola School of Law and an M.B.A. (finance) and Ph.D. from the University of Oregon.
Li has been with BofA since 2013. His background is in quantitative and technical analysis. Previously, he was a consultant at Riverbend Capital Advisors and was director and head of the municipal pricing group at Interactive Data Corp. Before that, he was head of the municipal strategy group at JPMorgan Securities and senior director and fixed-income strategist at Merrill Lynch. Li has a Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of California, Berkeley.
Rogow has been with BofA since 2014. He has experience focusing on stressed credits such as Puerto Rico, Illinois, Chicago and the Chicago Public Schools. Previously, he was an analyst in the public finance group at Moody’s Investors Service. Rogow is a lawyer and received his Doctor of Law, J.D., from Brooklyn Law School; he interned at the Kings County District Attorney’s Office. He received his BBA in business administration from the George Washington University School of Business.
