Republican elected officials from across the nation explained how infrastructure investments have fueled growth in their local economies, and said those successes support the case for more federal resources for infrastructure, as well as the preservation of tax- exempt municipal bonds in any tax-reform legislation. Their comments came during a policy briefing at the Republican National Convention sponsored by the National League of Cities (NLC), the nation’s largest and most representative organization for city officials, and Build America Mutual (BAM), the first mutual insurer of municipal bonds.

Build America Mutual, the first mutual insurer of US municipal bonds, is now posting indicative quotes for secondary market insurance on more than 10,000 CUSIPs on the Bloomberg Professional Service. All of the bonds listed have been underwritten by BAM’s public finance group and pre-approved by the insurer’s credit committee.
“Secondary market insurance is becoming a more important tool for institutional investors and regional dealers that want to enhance the credit quality and liquidity of their holdings and offerings,” said Scott Richbourg, BAM’s Head of Public Finance. “Bloomberg is a part of their workday, and having our prices there helps make the process of wrapping a bond with insurance as seamless as possible.”
Bloomberg Terminal users who select the ALLQ page for a bond that is eligible for BAM insurance will see the price quote next to the new “BAMZ” ticker symbol. They can then call BAM’s secondary market desk at 212-235-2550 to execute the transaction. BAM’s secondary quotes are also available on MuniBrokers.com and the Lumesis DIVERAdvisor platform, and BAM insurance is available for live execution via TMC Bonds.
About Build America Mutual
Build America Mutual improves municipal bond liquidity and market access for issuers by providing municipal bondholders with an unconditional, irrevocable guaranty that principal and interest will be paid on schedule. As a mutual insurer, BAM is operated for the benefit of its members – which are, exclusively, the U.S. cities, counties, towns, and other public-sector entities that use BAM’s financial guaranty to lower their cost of borrowing. BAM is sponsored by the National League of Cities. Through March 1, BAM has written more than 2,400 policies, insuring more than $24 billion of municipal securities. Learn more at: https://live-bambondscom.pantheonsite.io/mission/
For more information, please contact:
Michael Stanton, Head of Corporate Strategy and Communications 212-235-2575; mstanton@buildamerica.com

Build America Mutual today reported its claims-paying resources grew to a new high of $601.4 million at the end of 2015. Total par outstanding reached $22.5 billion, an 82% increase from year-end 2014.
Build America Mutual’s Statutory Financial Statements and Operating Supplements are available in the Financial Information section of BAM’s web site at: https://live-bambondscom.pantheonsite.io/financialinformation. The financial statements have also been filed with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and the 50 state insurance regulators that license BAM.
Since its launch in 2012, BAM has provided insurance for $24.3 billion of municipal bonds in 2,860 transactions for more than 1,700 municipal bond issuers, who are also the members of the mutual company.
For more information, contact Michael Stanton, Head of Corporate Strategy and Communications, at mstanton@buildamerica.com or 212-235-2575.

Build America Mutual, the first mutual insurer of US municipal bonds, and MuniBrokers LLC, an online service aggregating bond offerings and bid-wanted lists from nine of the nation’s largest interdealer bond brokerage firms, today announced that BAM will list indicative secondary-market insurance premium quotes on the MuniBrokers site.
“Bringing additional tools and information to users on our website is a continuing priority here at MuniBrokers,” said Jay Caldas, President of MuniBrokers, LLC. “We’ve been linked to BAM Credit Profiles for all BAM-insured inventory since last year, and this update adds information about the availability and cost of adding a BAM guaranty to users’ holdings or offerings, the obvious next step as the utilization of secondary market insurance to improve bonds’ ratings and liquidity becomes more common.”
Inventory that has been pre-approved for insurance by BAM’s credit committee will be flagged on the site with a quote for the insurance, expressed in terms of dollars per bond, and the corresponding all-in yield calculated by MuniBrokers. Users will call BAM’s Capital Markets desk to confirm terms and execute the insurance transaction. BAM insured $611 million of bonds in the secondary market in 2015, up 30% from 2014.
“Adding BAM’s quotes to the MuniBrokers platform will streamline price discovery for traders who are already utilizing secondary market wraps as part of their strategies, and help others identify and evaluate situations where insurance adds value,” said Scott Richbourg, BAM’s Head of Public Finance.
BAM Credit Profiles (formerly known as Obligor Disclosure Briefs) will continue to be available for all BAM-insured bonds listed on the site. Municipal bond investors, traders, and sales professionals use BAM Credit Profiles to make their mandatory reviews of municipal credit quality faster and more efficient, while bond issuers – the public-sector entities that are BAM’s members – benefit from increased transparency that can improve the liquidity of their insured and uninsured bonds. BAM publishes a Credit Profile for every issuer it insures, and updates them annually. To date, BAM has published more than 2,500 Credit Profiles.
About Build America Mutual
Build America Mutual improves municipal bond liquidity and market access for issuers by providing municipal bondholders with an unconditional, irrevocable guaranty that principal and interest will be paid on schedule. As a mutual insurer, BAM is operated for the benefit of its members – which are, exclusively, the U.S. cities, counties, towns, and other public-sector entities that use BAM’s financial guaranty to lower their cost of borrowing. BAM is sponsored by the National League of Cities.
Through February 1, BAM has written more than 2,400 policies, insuring more than $24 billion of municipal securities. Learn more at: https://live-bambondscom.pantheonsite.io/about-bam/
About MuniBrokers.com
MuniBrokers, LLC provides software to interdealer brokers and a subscription web based trading system for their clients through MuniBrokers.com.
Their connectivity, customer distribution network and intuitive systems enable MuniBrokers to offer a unique opportunity for market participants to enhance their business.
MuniBrokers supports transactions in Municipal, Corporate, Agency and US Treasury securities.
For more information, please contact:
Michael Stanton, Head of Corporate Strategy and Communications, Build America Mutual 212-235-2575; mstanton@buildamerica.com

Build America Mutual, the first mutual insurer of US municipal bonds, today announced that Scott Sollers will join the firm to lead its West Region Public Finance group. He will be responsible for managing BAM’s West Coast- based underwriters and helping to set strategic direction for the company.
“Scott has a deep knowledge of the unique infrastructure financing needs of issuers in California and throughout the West,” said Build America Mutual Chief Executive Officer Seán W. McCarthy. “Having his skills, knowledge, and sterling reputation on our team will make us even better-positioned to meet the needs of our issuer members.”
Sollers is a veteran municipal bond investment banker and industry leader who has helped raise billions of dollars for infrastructure investment throughout California and the West. He joins BAM from Stifel, where he was a managing director, and was previously Chairman of Stone & Youngberg, which was the largest California-based underwriter of municipal bonds when it was acquired by Stifel in 2011. Sollers is also a former Chairman of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board.
“I have known the BAM management team for decades and have enormous respect for their talent and integrity. I believe in the BAM business model because it aligns the interests of municipal issuers and bond investors behind a shared goal of building long-term financial strength,” Mr. Sollers said. “I am very excited to join BAM and continue to work with my colleagues in the industry.”
Operating from offices in San Francisco and Los Angeles, the West Region group covers 18 states and generated more than a third of BAM’s primary market par insured in 2015.
About Build America Mutual
Build America Mutual improves municipal bond liquidity and market access for issuers by providing municipal bondholders with an unconditional, irrevocable guaranty that principal and interest will be paid on schedule. As a mutual insurer, BAM is operated for the benefit of its members – which are, exclusively, the U.S. cities, counties, towns, and other public-sector entities that use BAM’s financial guaranty to lower their cost of borrowing. BAM is sponsored by the National League of Cities. Through March 1, BAM has written more than 2,400 policies, insuring more than $24 billion of municipal securities. Learn more at: https://live-bambondscom.pantheonsite.io/about-bam/
For more information, please contact:
Michael Stanton, Head of Corporate Strategy and Communications 212-235-2575; mstanton@buildamerica.com

Build America Mutual Assurance Company (BAM) announced today that it has hired Michael Stanton as Head of Strategy and Communications. He joins from SourceMedia, where he was Senior Vice President for Capital Markets, managing a group of four major publications, including The Bond Buyer, the company’s flagship municipal finance daily newspaper and web site. He reports to Seán W. McCarthy, Chief Executive Officer of BAM.
Mr. McCarthy said, ”Mike has a wealth of experience in financial news media and public finance and will help us build recognition of BAM as a growing utility to the municipal market. His expertise in online communications will be particularly valuable as we strive to provide unprecedented transparency about BAM-insured transactions and the mutual company itself to all levels of the market.”
Mr. Stanton said: “I believe bond insurance has an important role to play in helping the municipal market operate more efficiently, which will translate into more resources that governments can invest in needed public infrastructure. I am excited about having the opportunity to join the BAM team and look forward to working with Betsy Castenir, BAM’s former Head of Communications, who will remain to share some of the communications responsibilities.”
Mike joined The Bond Buyer as a reporter in 1995 and served in multiple positions with the newspaper and its parent, including Editor-in-Chief and Publisher. During the course of his career, he has been responsible for business and product development, including managing the ongoing transition of the group’s audiences from print to online delivery platforms. Under his watch, the group launched several innovative products and events, most notably the Rapidata service to quickly disseminate economic news and Municipal Finance Today, a new website serving U.S. government finance officers with news about cash-management, budgeting and accounting practices and HR issues.
He is a graduate of Columbia University and received an MBA from Harvard Business School.
About BAM
Domiciled in New York, BAM is a mutual insurer of municipal bonds, exclusively. As a mutual bond insurance company, BAM is operated for the benefit of its members – the cities, states and other municipal entities – that use BAM’s financial guaranty to lower their cost of borrowing. BAM is rated AA/Stable by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services, the highest S&P rating in our industry, and is sponsored by the National League of Cities.
For additional information, please contact:
Betsy Castenir
Corporate Communications Build America Mutual 212-257-6148
C: 917-940-2462

White Mountains Insurance Group, which provided the initial capital to support the launch of Build America Mutual, today released its full- year 2014 results, including a discussion of BAM’s performance. The release, which can be viewed here, noted that BAM’s claims-paying resources increased to $581 million during the year. BAM insured $7.8 billion of municipal bonds in 2014, up 66% from 2014, and guaranteed more than half of all insured primary-market transactions.
White Mountains reports on BAM in its GAAP earnings statements because it is the holder of approximately $500 million of surplus notes issued by the company as part of its initial capitalization. As a mutual company, BAM itself files financial statements that follow statutory accounting principles, which are designed to focus on the company’s financial strength for policyholders and beneficiaries. BAM will release its own earnings report, including a complete Operating Supplement with details on its insured portfolio, later in February.
In the release, Seán McCarthy, Chief Executive Officer of BAM, discussed industry business conditions in 2014: “The fourth quarter was BAM’s most productive to date, capping a year of strong growth for the company and increasing investor demand for municipal bond insurance. Although the overall volume of new-issue municipal bonds was essentially unchanged from 2013, the volume of insured municipal bonds increased more than 60% and BAM’s share of the market rose as well, to 40% of the insured par and more than half of all insured transactions. Rising volume in the overall market in the fourth quarter helped stabilize pricing, which improved slightly despite the continuing challenges posed by the low interest-rate environment.”
McCarthy continued, “The use of bond insurance was particularly strong in BAM’s core market of small- and mid-sized issuers with ratings in the single-A and triple-B ratings categories, who benefit most from the additional disclosure and transparency offered by BAM’s ODB credit-summary reports. More than 60% of bonds sold in that target market carried insurance, and BAM’s market share among these was 54%.”
About Build America Mutual
BAM is a mutual bond insurance company operated for the benefit of its members – the cities, states and other municipal entities that use BAM’s financial guaranty to lower their cost of borrowing. BAM is sponsored by the National League of Cities. Learn more at https://live-bambondscom.pantheonsite.io/mission
For more information, please contact:
Michael Stanton, Head of Corporate Strategy and Communications 212-235-2575; mstanton@buildamerica.com

Build America Mutual today filed its Third Quarter 2015 Statutory Financial Statements and published its Operating Supplement, reporting an 11% increase in gross par outstanding to $19.8 billion. Claims-paying resources rose $5.8 million to $592.6 million, the largest quarterly increase since the company was founded in 2012.
Build America Mutual’s Statutory Financial Statements and Operating Supplements are available in the Financial Information section of BAM’s web site at: https://live-bambondscom.pantheonsite.io/financialinformation. The financial statements have also been filed with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and the 50 state insurance regulators that license BAM.
For more information, contact Michael Stanton, Head of Corporate Strategy and Communications, at mstanton@buildamerica.com or 212-235-2575.

Build America Mutual today announced that it has filed its 2014 third-quarter Statutory Financial Statements and Operating Supplement, reflecting the mutual municipal-bond insurer’s continued growth and the increasing use of insurance on new-issue bond sales by public-sector issuers.
BAM’s gross par outstanding stood at $9.96 Billion as of September 30, 2014, up from $4.70 Billion on December 31, 2013. Total claims-paying resources were $581.3 Million, compared with $578.5 million at the end of 2013. The ratio of gross par insured to claims-paying resources was 17.3 : 1.
The financial statements and operating supplement were filed with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and posted in the Financial Information section of BAM’s web site at: https://live-bambondscom.pantheonsite.io/financialinformation.
For more information, contact Richard Holzinger, Head of Investor Relations, at rholzinger@buildamerica.com or 212-235-2518.

Build America Mutual today announced that it has filed its 2014 second-quarter Statutory Financial Statements and Operating Supplement, reflecting the mutual municipal-bond insurer’s continued growth through the first half of 2014, even as new- issue volume in the municipal bond market declined.
BAM’s gross par outstanding stood at $7.77 Billion as of June 30, 2014, up from $4.70 Billion on December 31, 2013. Total claims-paying resources were $581.6 Million, compared with $578.5 million at the end of 2013. The ratio of gross par insured to claims-paying resources was 13.4 : 1, the lowest among active financial guaranty insurers.
The financial statements and operating supplement were filed with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and posted in the Financial Information section of BAM’s web site at: https://live-bambondscom.pantheonsite.io/financialinformation.
For more information, contact Richard Holzinger, Head of Investor Relations, at rholzinger@buildamerica.com or 212-235-2518, or Michael Stanton, Head of Strategy and Communications, at mstanton@buildamerica.com or 212-235-2575

Build America Mutual today filed its Second Quarter 2015 Statutory Financial Statements and published its Operating Supplement, reporting a 23% increase in gross par outstanding to $17.8 billion. Claims-paying resources rose $4.8 million to $586.8 million, the largest quarterly increase since the company was founded in 2012.
Build America Mutual’s Statutory Financial Statements and Operating Supplements are available in the Financial Information section of BAM’s web site at: https://live-bambondscom.pantheonsite.io/financialinformation. The financial statements have also been filed with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and the 50 state insurance regulators that license BAM.
For more information, contact Michael Stanton, Head of Corporate Strategy and Communications, at mstanton@buildamerica.com or 212- 235-2575.

Build America Mutual today published its 2014 first-quarter Statutory Financial Statements and Operating Supplement, showing that the municipal-bond insurer’s claims-paying ability rose to $583 million. As the first mutual bond insurer, BAM’s focus is on building its capital base, to support its ratings and to enhance the value of its guaranty among municipal bond investors and the issuer-members who hold BAM’s policies. BAM was the most-active insurer of municipal bonds in the primary market in the first quarter, both by number of transactions and par insured.
In addition to strong financial and new-business performance, BAM announced that it agreed with the holders of its Surplus Notes to change the interest rate on the notes from a fixed rate to a floating rate. The new terms reflect current market conditions, including the extended period of low interest rates and BAM’s progress in establishing its franchise as a market leader in the revitalized financial-guaranty insurance industry.
The financial statements were filed with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners and posted in the Financial Information section of BAM’s web site at: https://live-bambondscom.pantheonsite.io/financialinformation.
For more information, contact Richard Holzinger, Head of Investor Relations, at rholzinger@buildamerica.com or 212-235-2518, or Michael Stanton, Head of Strategy and Communications, at mstanton@buildamerica.com or 212-235-2575