Fallon to replace Brown as MBIA CEO

MBIA Inc. said Bill Fallon, head of the municipal bond insurance unit, will replace Jay Brown as CEO as part of a long term succession plan.

Fallon, who joined the board of directors in May, is the president and chief operating officer of MBIA Inc. and the CEO of National Public Finance Guarantee Corp. National in June was dealt a two-notch downgrade by S&P Global Ratings, prompting the unit to curtail new business and shed 29 employees, including the entire new business team.

“Bill has demonstrated that he has the leadership and management skills to take MBIA through the next chapter in its history,” Brown said in a press release Thursday. “Notwithstanding recent developments, the company is well positioned, under Bill’s leadership, to create significant shareholder value in the years ahead. It has been a great honor to serve MBIA in a wide variety of roles over the past 31 years and I look forward to following the company’s success in the years ahead.”

Brown first joined the company all the back in 1986 as a director, becoming CEO in 1999. After a brief hatitus from May 3 2007 to Feb. 2008, when he rejoined as chairman and CEO and served as chairman until May 7, 2009. He plans to conclude his service on the MBIA Inc. board of directors as of the 2018 annual shareholder meeting in May of 2018.

“I am both humbled and excited to take MBIA forward into its next stage,” said Fallon. “Jay has been a mentor and an inspiration for me. I look forward to his continued guidance and counsel as both MBIA and Jay pursue their future endeavors.”

While National is suspending new business activity, it had $4.6 billion of claims-paying resources as of March 31, which it said was sufficient to satisfy S&P’s AAA capital adequacy requirements.

“One of the key roles of any board and their management team is to have an effective long term succession plan,” said Charles Rinehart, MBIA chairman of the board. “Over the past several years, Jay has worked with our independent board members to identify and transition a management team to prepare us for when he moves on to his next challenge. Bill has partnered with Jay for the last decade in getting the company through the enormous challenges MBIA faced created by the financial crisis and is extremely well prepared to take on the additional leadership role for MBIA Inc. The company owes Jay a big thank-you for coming back in 2008 and developing a strategy to get us through the difficult circumstances we faced at that time.”

The announcement comes two days after MBIA reported a second quarter loss under consolidated generally accepted accounting principles of $1.2 billion, or $9.78 per share, compared with a consolidated GAAP net loss of $27 million, or $0.20 per share, for the second quarter of 2016.

The company said that the net loss was primarily due to previously disclosed full valuation allowance on the company’s deferred tax asset as of the second quarter of 2017. In addition, increased losses and loss adjustment expenses at National also contributed to the unfavorable variance for this year’s second quarter result compared with last year’s second quarter.