Public finance

Peter Shapiro, founder of Swap Financial Group and a former New Jersey legislator and county executive, died at his home in East Orange on March 29 after a long illness. He was 71.

"HB 727, if signed into law, should lower borrowing costs for Kentucky school districts and will serve as a critical tool in dealing with cost overruns and other inflationary pressures," said Compass Municipal Advisors.

"Most spots on the muni AAA HG curve are at or near year-to-date highs, and the muni HG curve showed significant underperformance across the curve in March, relative to the broader fixed income market, after sizable muni outperformance in February," said J.P. Morgan strategists.

Gyliane Morgan alleges the company retaliated against her in 2020 after she pointed to the firm's oversight failings — including not flagging defaults by borrowers — stemming from its role in a U.S. Department of Education program that helps finance campus projects, according to a wrongful termination lawsuit she filed March 27 in a New York federal court.

Congress has taken no significant action on bills that would stop the depletion of the United States Virgin Islands' government pension system for 21 months.

Municipal bonds on the rise

Among the items approved by the state Local Government Commission were $750 million of affordable housing bonds, the Turnpike Authority's Thursday sale of $184 million to refund BABs and Wake County's $321 million refunding bonds.

Representatives from the Securities and Exchange Commission gathered Tuesday to discuss some of their examination priorities and some of the trends they're seeing outside of exams.

"What we saw in 2023 was a large surge of issuers coming back into the single-family bond market," said Kurt van Kuller of Sit Investment Associates.

The bankruptcy of Iowa City's Mercy Hospital is closer to an end with the resolution of a dispute between unsecured creditors and the trustee and bondholder.

Before Tuesday's selloff, muni yields have been rising over the last several weeks due to "outsized" new-issue supply, said Anders S. Persson, Nuveen's chief investment officer for global fixed income, and Daniel J. Close, Nuveen's head of municipals.

With a dearth of taxable muni supply and Build America Bond refundings, the university should see strong demand for this week's $500 million taxable corporate CUSIP bonds.

The city is offering $567.6 million of debt in competitive sales Thursday as rating agencies keep a close eye on pension funding progress.

In "my nearly 50 years in finance, I've never seen more demand for energy infrastructure," BlackRock CEO Larry Fink said in his latest investor letter.

Christopher Perillo agreed to settle charges that he improperly had access to study materials during an examination.

Longtime San Francisco Bay Area bond attorney firm Quint & Thimmig is closed.

Austin Transit Partnership's ability under Texas law to seek expedited court validation for bonds to finance light rail is the subject of an April 25 hearing.

John Hallacy of John Hallacy Consulting and Rich Ciccarone, president emeritus of Merritt Research Services, talk with Chip Barnett about the municipal bond business over the past 40 years. They take a look back at where the industry has been, where it is and where it will be going.

The uptick in supply amid tax season has led to a short-end correction and higher muni to UST short ratios, but the levels are still rather rich from a historical perspective.

Fitch Ratings analysts, who downgraded the bonds to junk in January, said they continue to monitor progress on the airport's automated guided rail system.