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

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