WASHINGTON — The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board is seeking applications to fill seven director spots that will become available on Oct. 1.
Interested individuals with municipal finance backgrounds have until Feb. 24 to submit applications to fill the vacancies, which include three public member positions, the board said Monday.
By law, the 21-member board, which writes the rules governing the $3.7 trillion market, must be majority-public. With 21 members, the board must include at least 11 members from the public, with the remainder from regulated entities such as broker-dealers, banks and municipal advisors.
The board members slated to leave after serving their three-year terms include chairman Dan Heimowitz, a managing director in RBC Capital Markets' muni group, and vice chair Joseph Geraci, a managing director at Citigroup and co-head of municipal markets for the company's municipal securities division.
Public members departing the board include Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe attorney Robert Fippinger, New York University senior fellow Dall Forsythe, and Samson Capital Advisors chief executive officer Benjamin Thompson.
De La Rosa & Co. president Edward De La Rosa will also leave the board, as will Acacia Financial Group, Inc. co-president Noreen White.
Of the four regulated member spots available for the new fiscal year, at least one must be filled by someone affiliated with a municipal advisor.
Public applicants must not have a "material business relationship" with any regulated entity "that reasonably could affect the independent judgment or decision making of the individual."
The MSRB has come under fire from some individuals in the market for a perceived lack of board members that are truly from the public. Some of its public members are retired or once had close ties to regulated firms. During the past year, that controversy was sparked anew by both the MSRB's proposal to alter its rule A-3 governing the election of board members to loosen the standard of independence for public board members and the appointment of bond insurer Build America Mutual's Robert Cochran as a public member.
The MSRB dropped its attempt to loosen the independence standard, but Heimowitz said in a recent interview that he is not uncomfortable with any of the public members and that finding public representatives with sufficient expertise in municipal finance is not easy.
After applications are gathered, an 11-member committee consisting of six public and five regulated entity board members will nominate one person for each vacant spot on the board. The full committee will then vote on their approval and announce the new board members before Oct. 1, the first day of their terms. The MSRB's Rule A-3 requires the board to publish the names of all applicants.
