S&P Global Ratings Affirms BAM’s AA Rating and Stable Outlook
June 30 2020 - 8:00AM
Business Wire
S&P Global Ratings announced that it has affirmed Build
America Mutual’s AA rating and stable outlook, the strongest rating
S&P assigns to any active bond insurer.
“BAM is a mutual bond insurer writing business solely in the
U.S. public finance market with a broad, well-diversified presence
across the U.S.; its insured portfolio comprises primarily general
obligation bonds for school districts and municipalities, which
somewhat lessens the volatility of its insured portfolio,” S&P
wrote in its report. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, S&P
performed a stress test on BAM’s portfolio and concluded that:
“BAM's underwriting and risk-management guidelines result in an
insured portfolio that does not reflect the overall U.S. municipal
market and may perform better in a stressful economic
scenario.”
“S&P’s analysis recognizes BAM’s ‘excellent capital and
earnings’ and low-risk insured portfolio that consists exclusively
of bonds from the safest sectors of the U.S. municipal market,”
said BAM Chief Executive Officer Seán W. McCarthy. “As a mutual
insurer, those strengths translate into a strong, durable guaranty
for municipal bond investors and our issuer members.”
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 the official provider of bond insurance for the National
League of Cities, and was launched in 2012 with initial capital
provided by subsidiaries of White Mountains Insurance Group, Ltd.
(NYSE:WTM)
Through March 31, 2020, BAM has insured more than $75 billion of
municipal securities in more than 8,500 primary and secondary
market transactions.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200630005250/en/
Michael Stanton, Head of Corporate Strategy and Communications
212-235-2575; mstanton@buildamerica.com
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