National Outlook 2023: Opening remarks

Michael Ballinger, Publisher, The Bond Buyer; Kevin Murphy, Partner, Hawkins Delafield & Wood LLP; Tim Sullivan, Managing Director, UBS Financial Services Inc

Transcription:

Michael Ballinger (00:09):

Good morning. I guess we'll get started. A lot of people out in the hallway, maybe they'll come in when they start hearing me talking. I'm Mike Ballinger, publisher of the Bond Buyers. My pleasure to welcome you to our Ninth Annual National Outlook Conference. This conference will address key issues and trends that will impact the municipal bond market in 2023 and beyond. With reduced municipal volume and rising interest rates, our market faces another very challenging year. Hopefully this conference will help us navigate through these difficult market conditions by providing greater insights on such topics as the impact of inflation and labor shortage on infrastructure projects, ESGs integration into the muni market, the new credit landscape, new municipal data and technology developments, and the implications of inflation reduction act on the muni sector. I'm particularly delighted that we have such a strong lineup of keynote speakers, including Deborah Goldberg, Massachusetts Treasurer, Elizabeth Fine, Counsel to the Governor, New York State Executive Chamber, and RuthAnne Visnauskas, Commissioner and CEO of New York State Homes and Community Renewal. Before I get started, I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of our sponsors and speakers for the conference, especially our conference co-chairs, Kevin Murphy of Hawkins Delafield & Wood, and Tim Sullivan of UBS. Also acknowledged several Bond Buyer employees for outstanding work on this program, Alma Subasic, Esther Thornton, Nina Amala, Dan Haskas, and Ryan Fallows who have handled all the marketing conference logistics. Please join me in a round of applause for the references.

(01:43)

Mike Scar, Chille, Editor in Chief and Member of the New York News Team will be at the conference. I'll urge you to reach out to them during the course of the conference. Kickoff the conference, my pleasure to introduce our conference co-chairs, Tim Sullivan's, Managing Director and Head of New England Region of Housing Finance for UBS public Finance Department. Prior to joining UBS, he was the Executive Director of the Mass Housing where he previously served as Deputy Director of Finance and Rental Programs Director of Rental Lending and Chief Financial Officer. Tim also served as Commonwealth, a Massachusetts budget director and finance director during Tim's tenured UBS. He was involved in nearly a hundred negotiated transactions in New England region housing totaling almost 15 billion since the beginning of 2018. Kevin Murphy is Partner Hawkins Fellow Field in Wood. He has served as Bond Council Disclosure Council, underwriters Council on a variety of revenue financings with particular focus on issuers in New York state and state local housing agencies. Kevin is in Hawkins Delafield & Wood, New York City office. He's a member of the firm's executive committee. Prior to joining Hawkins, he served as the US Department of Housing and Urban Development Office of the General Counsel. Please join me to Warm welcome for Kevin Murphy.

Kevin Murphy (02:51):

Thanks, Mike. Thanks everyone for coming. Welcome on behalf of Hawkins Delfield Wood and very much looking forward to a great lineup of speakers and particularly our three keynote speakers. When we were here March 1st of last year, we were looking forward to the next rate hike. We're now eight rate hikes later. It was in the industry that I spent a lot of my time in multi-family housing bonds as well. Tim does as well. It was those projects and those issuers can deal with high rates and high costs, but it's very difficult to deal with rapidly rising rates and costs, and that was a challenge last year. I think obviously bond volume was down. I think it's interesting that what was down really, I think was taxable. New money, taxable refunding and tax exempt refunding taxes, exempt new money was stable or a little bit up. So our state and local governments are still financing important capital projects and still financing them the way that they owes have in the tax and bond market.

(03:55)

That shouldn't be come as a surprise I suppose, but even in such a challenging year that still happened, I think that multi-family housing certainly is poised to, I think, really take off once rates and cost stabilize if there's no economic growth challenges especially in light of pre pandemic and pandemic era, federal support and improvements for that in that sector, including it's related tax credit. The same I think is probably true in other sectors. And so hopefully that's all poised to happen. The question is just when in 23 it happens. So thanks very much. Looking forward to the program and turn it over to my Brent, Tim.