Municipal credit guru Claire Cohen officially retired from Fitch Ratings toward the end of 2004. She’s still not quite done with the municipal market, though.
After completing in December a consulting stint with Fitch, Cohen has accepted another offer to work for Public Resources Advisory Group. She will specialize in issuer credit and might even help bring in new clients as a part-time consultant in PRAG’s New York City office, said Bill Cobbs, PRAG’s chairman and founder.
Cohen joined Fitch in 1989 from Moody’s Investors Service, where she was chairwoman of the public finance department rating committee. Her more than 30-year career has spanned virtually all aspects of the municipal market.
She was chairwoman of the Municipal Analysts Group of New York, was on the National Federation of Municipal Analysts’ board of governors, and as a member of the Governmental Accounting Standards Advisory Council, according to Fitch. Cohen has been honored during the last few years by several industry organizations for her life’s work in the municipal market.
During her recent two years of consulting work for Fitch, Cohen worked on a study of the indirect extensions of credit, such as moral obligation debt, that states have taken on in recent years. In the resulting report, Cohen concluded that these credit extensions do not yet pose a risk on states’ credibility.
Cohen said she will work about two days a week for PRAG, starting next week. The details of her new job, such as which projects and credits she will work on, have yet to be mapped out, Cohen said.
“I’ve worked with Claire for many years and I’ve had the highest regard for her analytical abilities,” said Cobbs, who worked with Cohen at Moody’s before he helped create PRAG in 1985.
“I have talked to her from time to time about joining us after she retired from Fitch,” Cobbs said. “At the start of this year, she said her engagement with Fitch was completed and wanted to know about joining us because she wasn’t ready to retire completely.”
He recounted a discussion between Cohen and former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu as a prime example of her analytical abilities in action. She and the governor tangled over the relative strengths of New Hampshire’s finances, versus those of Cohen’s home state of Vermont, Cobbs explained.
“She was dueling wits with a very excellent — an equal — opponent,” he said.
