Time: 3:00 pm - 5:00 pm, with a cocktail reception to follow

Location:  

Janney Montgomery Scott
1717 Arch Street, 20th Floor
Philadelphia, PA 19103

Speakers: 

Alfred Medioli, Moody’s Investors Service, Senior Vice President, Manager/Ratings & Process Oversight

David Strungis, Moody’s Investors Service, Assistant Vice President-Analyst/Ratings & Process Oversight

Details: 

Al Medioli and David Strungis of Moody’s Investors Service’s Rating & Process Oversight team will discuss the history of municipal bond defaults, including providing updates on Puerto Rico. The Commonwealth’s defaults may be few in number, but significant relative to debt impacted. Moody’s indicates that the seven defaults of the debt separately secured by component issuers topped  $31 billion. The defaulting credits included: Employees Retirement System (ERS), the Electric Power Authority (PREPA), the Sales Tax Financing Corporation (COFINA: senior and junior liens), The Highway and Transportation Authority (PRHTA senior lien), the Convention Center District Authority; and the Industrial Development Company (PRIDCO). There also remains the potential for additional defaults from other Puerto Rico issuers, which Moody’s indicates have $4.7 billion in aggregate.

While municipal defaults and bankruptcies have become more common in the last decade, they are still rare in the fixed income universe overall. Moody’s publishes an annual study that evaluates the performance of Moody's municipal ratings and their consistency with global corporate ratings. It covers public underlying ratings for all public finance issuers, including US state and local governments, municipal utilities, not-for-profit hospitals, housing agencies, colleges and universities, as well as other municipal issuers with long-term debt ratings. It also includes certain infrastructure and project finance credits that are tracked in parallel in our infrastructure default study. Insured, enhanced, and letter of credit-backed ratings are excluded.

Press: The event is open to the press, with two stipulations: 1) May only cover the official remarks and presentation and 2) No coverage on Q&A session or non-presentation discussions

Annual Meeting: The Annual Meeting of PhAMAS will include an election of the slate for next year’s board, which is listed below.

The Board has nominated the following officers for the 2019 year:
Chair: Ron Mintz, Vanguard
Vice Chair: Jim Balazsy, Glenmede
Treasurer: Erin Ortiz, Janney
Program Chair: Ken Weinstein, PNC

The Assistant Program Chair will be Ellen Cannarsa of Vanguard.

Cost: $25 members; $75 non-members; state, local, municipal officials (please check with your state & organization rules), and students can attend for free by emailing Bill Bonawitz at [email protected].

Registration: Please RSVP using the form below. First select whether or not you are a PhAMAS member, enter your personal information, and then proceed to pay the appropriate fee. You will be able to pay with a credit card - you do not need to have a PayPal account. If you have any problems with your payment, please contact Bill Bonawitz at [email protected].