BUILD AMERICA MUTUAL’S PLAN OF OPERATION, FILED WITH AND APPROVED BY THE NEW YORK DEPARTMENT OF FINANCIAL SERVICES, PROVIDES THAT BAM “WILL ONLY INSURE INVESTMENT GRADE, ESSENTIAL PUBLIC PURPOSE U.S. MUNICIPAL BONDS”, U.S. MUNICIPAL BONDS BEING DEFINED AS “DEBT OBLIGATIONS ISSUED BY STATE AND LOCAL MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENTS AND PUBLIC AUTHORITIES LOCATED IN THE UNITED STATES”.

Build America Mutual, the first mutual insurer of US municipal bonds, and Lumesis, Inc. a leading provider of business efficiency, regulatory compliance and data solutions for the municipal market, today announced a joint initiative to improve investors’ access to municipal bond credit information by making BAM’s Obligor Disclosure Brief (ODB) credit summaries available to users of Lumesis’ DIVER Advisor platform.
Municipal bond investors, traders, and sales professionals use BAM’s ODBs 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 an ODB for every issuer it insures, and updates them annually. To date, BAM has published more than 1,800 ODBs.
DIVER Advisor was developed to help the muni bond industry leverage technology to stay ahead of changing compliance obligations around time of trade disclosure, suitability and for those institutions subject to Dodd Frank’s standard of creditworthiness. The new integration will allow users to have one-click access to BAM’s ODBs for all insured CUSIPs. DIVER Advisor users will also be able to forward the ODBs to their clients for review.
In addition, DIVER Advisor will also flag uninsured CUSIPs that BAM has already pre-approved for its secondary-market insurance program. Bonds insured by BAM in the secondary market can benefit from an improved credit rating and heightened market liquidity.
“BAM’s ODBs are a clear complement to the information available on the DIVER Advisor platform. The annual ODB is another example of how we provide our users access to ‘material information reasonably accessible’ built into their workflow, ,”said Gregg L. Bienstock, Esq., CEO and Co-Founder of Lumesis..
“Improving market transparency is at the core of BAM’s mission to serve municipal bond issuers and investors – and that means delivering useful credit information to the market when it’s most valuable. Our integration with DIVER Advisor does that, putting the information in the hands of a retail advisor at the moment they need it to help evaluate a bond purchase decision, or explain a credit to their client,” said Build America Mutual CEO Seán W. McCarthy.
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 May 15, BAM has written more than 2,000 policies, insuring more than $17 billion of municipal securities. Learn more at https://live-bambondscom.pantheonsite.io/about-bam/
About Lumesis
Lumesis, Inc. is a financial technology company focused on providing business efficiency, data and regulatory solutions to the municipal bond marketplace. Founded in 2010, Lumesis is completely dedicated to serving the municipal market with industry-leading analysis and compliance solutions that meet the needs of an evolving regulatory environment. Today, the company’s DIVER platform helps hundreds of firms with over 40,000 users efficiently meet credit, regulatory and risk needs. Lumesis investors include Safeguard Scientifics, Inc. (NYSE:SFE) Learn more
at https://www.lumesis.com
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 today announced that Standard & Poor’s has affirmed the company’s financial strength rating at AA, with a stable outlook.

The new bond insurer, BAM, intends to begin under- wri ng in September, with expecta ons for at least $10Bn of par wrapped in the rst twelve months. In the- ory, this will trade more weakly at outset and will slowly improve over the next few years. Whether or not this outperformance will outweigh other market vectors is debatable; however, ini ally insured, longer maturity BAM bonds will provide at least modest outperformance prospects for investors with pa ent capital to spend.

Build America Mutual Assurance Company (BAM or the Company), the first mutual municipal bond insurer, today announced that it has hired Les Richmond as Vice President and Actuary. He reports to Suzanne M. Finnegan, Chief Underwriting Officer.
Seán W. McCarthy, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of BAM, said: “We are looking forward to working with Les, who brings over 30 years of experience in designing and assessing the funding of employee benefit programs. He will play an important role in our credit underwriting process given the importance of understanding the potential impacts of unfunded pension liabilities and Other Post Employment Benefits on transaction performance.”
Mr. Richmond said: “I view this as a great opportunity to put my expertise in valuations and pension asset-liability modeling to work in the context of evaluating the debt profiles of a broad range of municipal entities. I am excited about working for BAM.”
Mr. Richmond joins BAM from Hay Group, where he was a Senior Principal and recently the Project Leader of a four-year engagement to audit the five New York City Retirement Systems. He also conducted special pension studies for the New York City Office of the Comptroller. Prior to that, he was a Senior Vice President of Aon Consulting, which he joined in 1986, with responsibility for providing actuarial consulting on post-retirement health and life insurance benefits and pensions.
He is an Associate of the Society of Actuaries and an Enrolled Actuary. He is also a member of the American Academy of Actuaries, Fellow of the Conference of Consulting Actuaries and a member of the American Society of Pension Professionals and Actuaries. He holds a B.A. in Mathematics from Rutgers College.
About BAM
Domiciled in New York, BAM is a mutual monoline 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 and is sponsored by the National League of Cities.
For further information, please contact:
Betsy Castenir
Head of Corporate Communications 212-257-6148
C: 917-940-2462 bcastenir@buildamerica.com

Build America Mutual Assurance Company (BAM or the Company), the first mutual municipal bond insurer, today announced that it has hired Jill Schmidt as Vice President, Public Finance, East Region. She joins BAM from Assured Guaranty, where she was a Vice President in Public Finance. She reports to Don Farrell, Head of BAM’s Eastern Regional Public Finance Group.
Mr. Farrell said: “We are looking forward to working with Jill. She brings extensive experience in credit underwriting across a variety of sectors, as well as a specialization in public power credits.”
“I am excited about this opportunity. I believe that BAM’s mutual business model brings many advantages to issuers and investors, and I am delighted to be a part of this new and improved kind of bond insurer.”
Ms. Schmidt joined Assured Guaranty in June of 2010 from Fitch, where she was a Director in the Global Power Group. Prior to that, she spent five years at FGIC, where she was a Vice President, Surveillance. Before that, she was a research analyst at Moody’s Investors Service, Inc.
She is a graduate of Clarkson University and holds a Master’s Degree in Business Administration from Baruch College. She is a member of the Municipal Analysts Group of New York, the National Federation of Municipal Analysts and Women in Public Finance.
About BAM
Domiciled in New York, BAM is a mutual monoline 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 and is sponsored by the National League of Cities.
For further information, please contact:
Betsy Castenir, Head of Corporate Communications, 212-257-6148

Build America Mutual Assurance Company (BAM or the Company), the first mutual municipal bond insurer, today announced its U.S. municipal insured par of public finance new issuance for the first quarter. BAM guaranteed 114 primary transactions for a total of $866.5 million of new issue volume in the first quarter. Since inception in July 2012 through the first quarter of 2013, BAM has insured 118 new issue municipals with a par amount of $898.5 million.
“We were particularly gratified that our market share of insured new issues grew substantially over the quarter, from 20% in January to 53% in February and March, and we continue to see inquiry from a variety of newly licensed states where BAM is now qualified to do business,” said Seán W. McCarthy, co-founder of BAM. BAM is now licensed in 37 states and the District of Columbia, and the Company expects to achieve nationwide licensing over the next few months.
BAM, which is operated for the benefit of its issuer members — the cities, states and other municipal entities that use its AA/Stable rated financial guaranty — is chartered to insure essential public purpose municipal issuers of fixed rate debt in core sectors. These are primarily G.O., general fund and appropriation bonds; utility and transportation revenue bonds, public colleges and universities and dedicated tax revenue bonds.
BAM’s market focus will remain on small to medium size municipal issuers, which use its guaranty to lower their interest costs and achieve greater market access. BAM’s average transaction size during the first quarter was $7.6 million, with a minimum size of $1.0 million and a maximum size of $52.7 million.
About BAM
Domiciled in New York, BAM is a mutual monoline insurer of municipal bonds, exclusively. BAM is rated AA/Stable by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services and is sponsored by the National League of Cities.
For further information, please contact:
Betsy Castenir, Head of Corporate Communications 212-257-6148 or 917-940-2462

Daniel Keating, a veteran leader in the municipal bond market, will join Build America Mutual as Senior Managing Director, Municipal Markets, effective immediately, the company announced today. In this role, Mr. Keating will utilize his extensive experience in all aspects of the municipal market. He will work with BAM’s Capital Markets and Public Finance departments to identify new opportunities for the company to use its AA/Stable-rated financial guaranty to enhance municipal market liquidity.
“Dan Keating has extensive experience and deep knowledge of the intricacies of the municipal market and the people who make it work every day, which makes him uniquely qualified to help us further our mission of building BAM into a municipal market utility serving issuers, dealers, and investors,” said Seán W. McCarthy, BAM’s Chief Executive Officer. “We are thrilled to have him join our team.”
Mr. Keating’s career in municipal finance spans more than 35 years. He was most recently the Chief Operating Officer for Samuel A. Ramirez & Co., and previously spent most of his career at Bear Stearns & Co., where he managed all of the firm’s tax- exempt products. In addition to his professional achievements, Mr. Keating served as a member of the board of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association and was chairman of the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board in 2001.
“I’ve always believed that you build a business around strong people, and I am incredibly impressed with the energy the people at BAM bring to delivering a good product and focusing on the needs of their clients,” said Mr. Keating. “I am looking forward to joining them and helping the company build on its impressive success to date.”
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. Through September 30, BAM has written more than 1,200 policies, insuring more than $10.3 billion of municipal securities, and guaranteed more than half of all insured new-issue bond sales in 2014. The present value of the savings it has delivered to issuers exceeds $100 million. 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) is pleased to announce that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) has accepted BAM’s request for a coordinated insurance company licensing application review under its Review of Electronic Application Coordination and Processing (REACAP) Project.
“We believe that the NAIC’s coordination of the licensing process will greatly enhance the efficiency and timeliness of securing nationwide licenses,” said Michael J. Moriarty, Head of Regulatory Oversight and Compliance for BAM. BAM, which is licensed in the State of New York, has submitted applications for licenses in all states.
Applications that are accepted into the REACAP program will have the timing, technology and substantive processing of the application review monitored by the National Treatment and Coordination Working Group, which is the NAIC group charged with overseeing the REACAP project. BAM has committed to offering financial guaranty insurance on U.S. municipal bonds nationwide, to file its licensing applications electronically, and to work with the states and the Working Group during the application review process.
In applying for admission to the program, BAM outlined for the Working Group’s consideration the national and regional market need for financial guaranty insurance to lower the cost of financing essential public infrastructure (particularly for smaller and less frequent issuers), the lack of capacity in the current marketplace, BAM’s unique public/private partnership, its robust financial condition as evidenced by the AA rating from Standard & Poor’s, and the deep experience of BAM’s management team in the municipal financial guaranty industry.
Domiciled in New York, Build America Mutual Assurance Company is a mutual bond insurer of essential public purpose U.S. municipal bonds, exclusively. Our members are the cities, states and other municipal agencies issuing bonds with Build America Mutual’s guaranty to lower their cost of borrowing. BAM, which is licensed in the State of New York, is permitted to write business in many jurisdictions throughout the United States. BAM is not yet authorized to do business in California and certain other states. BAM’s website address is www.BuildAmerica.com.

BAM’s competitive position is very strong due to its low-risk business profile that focuses on insuring municipal bonds. We have assigned a financial strength rating of ‘AA’ and a stable outlook. We believe the company will have very strong market penetration. We expect BAM to have an extremely strong capital-adequacy ratio at incorporation and during the first five years of its operation.

• Competitive position profile demonstrated by its market acceptance and risk-adjusted pricing
• Specific focus on high-credit-quality and lower-risk-weighted municipal obligation categories to offset the challenging municipal yield dynamics
• Capital adequacy well above the ‘AAA’ bond insurance capital requirements, even during stress periods
Weaknesses:
• Start-up fixed-cost nature of operations will result in weak operating performance metrics in the near term
• Insured par growth prospects and risk-adjusted profitability depend on municipal market-yield dynamics and
competitive forces

I’m very pleased to announce that Build America Mutual Assurance Company (BAM) is the newest member of the Bond Dealers of America.
The BDA now represents 54 firms active in the US fixed income markets and continues to be the primary voice in Washington, DC when advocating for the interests of fixed income dealers whose primary focus is the US capital markets. The addition of BAM makes the BDA a deeper, stronger and more effective trade association when representing the interests of BDA member firms.
BUILD AMERICA MUTUAL:
THE NEXT GENERATION BOND INSURER
BAM’s mission is to deliver substantial interest cost savings for issuers of municipal bonds and durable protection against loss for municipal bondholders. Owned by its policyholders –the cities, states and other municipal entities that use its guaranty–BAM’s mutual structure and business plan provide extremely strong capital and claims-paying resources designed to maintain the highest available ratings and strong investor confidence.
BAM is chartered to insure U.S. municipal bonds, exclusively. Its underwriting and credit policies permit BAM to insure only U.S. essential public purpose municipal issuers of fixed rate, fully amortizing debt.
Sizably capitalized on Day 1 in excess of half a billion dollars in initial funding, BAM’s capital will grow as its insured portfolio grows, eliminating the need to increase capital by either incurring risks outside of the
company’s narrow, low risk market —’mission creep’— or turning to the public markets to add capital. BAM’s claims-paying resources are further strengthened by first loss reinsurance protection up to 15% of each insured issue, which obligation is secured in trust for the sole benefit of
BAM. Importantly, BAM has no legacy exposure in its insured portfolio to asset classes that caused losses for bond insurers during the recent financial crisis.
BAM is rated AA/Stable by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. Domiciled in New York, BAM is regulated by the New York State Department of Financial Services. BAM is sponsored by the National League of Cities.
www.buildamerica.com
The BDA represents securities dealers with a primary focus on the US fixed income markets. Through direct, federal advocacy, industry events, market practice documents and industry surveys the BDA continues to be the primary advocate in Washington, DC for fixed income dealers.
For more information on the BDA please contact Mike Nicholas
at mnicholas@bdamerica.org or 202-204-7901. You can also find more information on the BDA website: www.bdamerica.org.
Mike Nicholas
Bond Dealers of America 202.204.7901 office 202.330.2739 cell
The Association of Fixed Income Dealers
www.BDAmerica.org