Opening Remarks: The Bond Buyer & Co-Chairs

Transcription:

Michael Ballinger (00:09):

Good afternoon, my pleasure to welcome you to the 29th Annual Texas Public Finance Conference. We have close to 500 registered attendees and we're particularly pleased we have over 110 issuers in attendance. This year's Texas Public Finance Conference will again address key issues and trends that are impacting the municipal and Texas bond markets. Coming off the heels of record bond issuance in 2024, our market now faces new risk and opportunities emitted adjusting to a new administration in Congress in Washington. Threats to tax exemption in various sectors of the market are more severe than the years past. That coupled with macroeconomic uncertainty and geopolitical tensions make for a challenging environment to say the least, but also provides the industry with an opportunity to highlight its resiliency, both the market itself and the infrastructure it builds. I'd like to take this opportunity to thank all of our sponsors and speakers for the conference, especially our conference co-chairs, Noe Hinojosa, President Municipal Capital Markets Division of Estrada Hinojosa, and Adebola (Bola) Kushimo, Associate Managing Director at Moody's Ratings. I also want to thank several Bond Buyer employees for outstanding work in this conference. Lynne Funk, who's responsible for developing this excellent agenda along with our conference co-chairs, as well as Deanna Piccillo, Megan Lupo, Kimberly O'Carroll, Erin Biscandi, and Dan Hoskins who've handled all the marketing and logistics for the conference. Please join me at a round of applause for their efforts.

(01:42):

The Bond Buyer editorial staff is also well represented. This conference led by Mike Scarchelli and Karen Piro. I urge you to reach out to our editorial and conference staff during the course of the conference. Kick off the conference. It's my pleasure to introduce our conference co-chairs. Noe Hinojosa is President of Municipal Capital Division of Estrada Hinojosa. Since founding the firm in 1992, noe's been responsible for managing the firm's transactions and growth of the firm. In the past three years alone, over the firm has participated in over a thousand transactions, totaling 114 billion as founding partner and CEO. He's led the firm to over 30 years of consecutive profits. No, has built a strong reputation for creative solutions to complex challenges in the public finance arena. Adebola (Bola) Kushimo is Associate Managing Director at Moody's, responsible for the team of analysts covering credits in Arkansas, Colorado, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas. She's currently chair of the Southern Municipal Finance Society and remains a board member of the NFMA where she leads the outreach program. Please join me in a warm welcome to Noe and Adebola.

 Adebola (Bola) Kushimo (02:59):

Good afternoon everyone, and welcome. My name is Bola Kushimo. I'm an Associate Managing Director at Moody's Ratings. I'm also the Head of the Dallas Local government office where we cover eight states, including the great state of Texas. It is a great pleasure to welcome you to the conference today. Moody's is thrilled not only to participate, but to co-sponsor and to co-chair this event. I especially want to thank Mike Ballinger, publisher at the Bond Buyer and the entire Arizent team for hosting this wonderful conference. I also want to thank Noe Hinojosa, President of Estrada Hinojosa and my co-chair for this event. I'm joined today by many of my Moody's colleagues, including Janice Hofferber, Managing Director and Head of US Public Finance, and my MD Eva Bogarty, Managing Director with oversights for local government offices in Dallas, Chicago and San Francisco. Their presence underscores Moody's commitments to not just public finance, but to a very successful conference.

(04:18):

It also shows our commitment to fostering an environment of collaboration and knowledge sharing. Please feel free to take a moment to visit with us in our Moody's booth or during one of the many networking sessions that we have planned over the next couple of days. Moody's is proud to remain the trusted voice during a time of uncertainty because we know that our contributions, our insightful analysis, help the market navigate complex financial decisions, and we do that by helping them have greater confidence to navigate that landscape. And what a time I have to say what a time of uncertainty we have right now. Certainly seems like things are changing moment to moment as we embark on today's sessions and those scheduled over the next couple of days. Let's take, we have a unique opportunity to dive into a vast array of topics. Everything from changing fiscal policy in Washington to the current legislative session, K 12 funding and the evolution of nontraditional schools, healthcare, transportation, and also the recent pullback of property insurers. Several developments. All the developments have widespread implications for Texas, not just today but in the years to come. So I encourage each and every one of you to engage in thoughtful conversation, ask probing questions and share insights because it is only through our collective expertise and collaboration that we can find solutions that will benefit Texas today and for many years to come. Again, I want to thank you for your time. Let's have a great conference.

Noe Hinojosa (06:26):

Noe Hinojosa, and I can't wait to tell you Unidos, that used to be something I could say not long ago. Now I got to be mindful as to what I say or how I say it, but I was having dinner last night with Janice Hofferberg from Moody's, the head of public finance, and she said, no, I can't wait for you to go up there with your iPad and start reading your speech. I said, you know what? I'm going to leave it down there. I'm just going to wing it, so I'm going to wing this. I think that's where we are as a country right now and as Texas, we are just trying to wing it every day. I think we're pricing something. Last week, city of Austin airports, right, Devin, and I think we held it back at good judgment of their financial advisor, PFM, and because we thought that things could get uneasy, well, they got really uneasy. We have had a cut in rates by almost a hundred basis points, and that's about the market that we're in. As I was coming from lunch, somebody called me and said to me, have you heard the tariffs are now being put on hold for three months except for China? And I looked at the Dow Jones up 4,000, now it's up about 2300.

(07:41):

Well, Texas was here before any of this was happening, and Texas has been growing like crazy, and it's really nice to see from time to time data that shows out of the 10 metro Plexus across the country, four of 'em are right here in Texas. You can start with Austin. You just get out of this hotel, turn left, and you see all those grains. I mean, I've been going to the northeast, the west coast. You don't see any of that out here. And I think the only reason we grow, I think I'm going to quote my good friend, well, not my good friend. I wish he was my good friend. You are straight. I was a Texan before I was an American, or I'm an American because I'm from Texas. And I think that's what's still prevailing here. And that's why when Mike Ballinger, and by the way, commend you and your staff for the great job you've been doing, I think this is like the 29th, 29th conference.

(08:39):

I feel like I've been here all 29 years. But anyway, it just shows how creative, how resilient Adebola said it best in that innovative, and that's what Texas is about. It's about being on the edge. I can take you eight blocks on Congress and you're going to see the capital today, the legislature talking about eliminating tools, financing tools that are very important to us, like tax notes, like certificates of obligation. Those are things that I'm going to be talking to your dad a little later today, Christie. But at the end of the day, those are tools that we need when we are growing. And unfortunately for some of us who are in the industry of securities and being a municipal advisor from time to time or an underwriter, we're kind of restricted to lobby. We're kind of restricted to go out and provide advice or whatever, but be mindful of the fact that anything that you do, whether it's in Texas or anywhere else, just go back to basics.

(09:42):

Put your client's interests first before yours. And I think that's why Texas, whether this is going on today or even later, we're going to prevail. What's intriguing to me is when you look at the GDP of Texas, I think this year was about $2.7 trillion this past year, 24 out of a total of 27 trillion or 29 across the country. If we were a country, we would just be behind France. I mean, who would've ever thought that we were just producing so much out there? And that's putting strain on our infrastructure. Every time I talk to whether it's, I'm not going to pick on Moody's, let's go to the other guys, Senator or Crawler Fitch. These guys are telling us, well, whatcha going to do about the oil emissions or oil and gas and the impact on the, I guess the weather, whatever. I said, look, I grew up pretty rebellious.

(10:43):

I think Jenny, my client in Dallas will tell you that here and I are pretty, we can rebel it a few times here and there, but at the end of the day, I'd rather ask, I'd rather say I'm sorry than ask for permission. So I'm from Texas, I'm not going to deny it. Oil and gas is the vibrant resource of Texas has made us stronger. What's made us very strong and become a leader. And that's why I felt Mike, that having somebody like Christie come on and give us sort of, I guess an introduction to what's going on in our state. Yes, it's important. Education is important. I know we have charter schools, we have vouchers being talked about, transportation. I just met earlier with TexDOT and some of the things that we're doing all across total authorities for that matter. I like to think that Texas is at the forefront, but tariffs in closing the loop, tariffs is something we were not expecting to be as they being presented.

(11:44):

I think some of us recognize that terrorists are good in some places, but not just across the board. And I just came back from the border Los Acceler on Monday night, and you should see city councils, packed house city council. I never seen anything like that where people are just concerned about the future. And I think when you go back to basics of the things that all of us do here to together with our legal professionals, our rating professionals, as long as you see Texas over the long haul, we're all going to be fine. It's about long-term planning. It's about, yes, bola reading your methodology for ratings for the single, for A ones, the A twos. I read all that, but at the end of the day, you got to do common sense converting. And that's what I like about Texas. So with that, I want to introduce someone who has been a friend of mine.

(12:43):

The family has been a friend for a long time. Her daddy was Tom Cradock still around, but Torat was the first, I guess Republican speaker ever. And she'll correct me if I'm wrong, cause she's very candid too. And that's one thing you got to do in Texas. You got to be very candid about things. But in any event, Tom and Adine are good friends of the family. Christie is just, I can't think nothing but the world of you. You've been holding the front there and very great mentor to my daughter behind you. Somebody's a lady that I admire and I look up to. So Christie, why don't you come up and join us and give your comments here. Thank you guys.