Debtwire Radio

The City of Bloomington, MN, home to Mall of America, wants to know whether owner Triple Five - which also owns the American Dream entertainment and retail complex in New Jersey — expects to be able to pay second-half property taxes when they are due in October after missing first-half property taxes that were due 15 May. Debtwire Municipals' Kathie O’Donnell and Debtwire ABS’s Maura Sadovi discuss the latest on the retail behemoth. Yong Lim, the Debtwire Municipals desk editor, is the moderator of the podcast. The Muni Lowdown is a weekly podcast recapping the previous week's significant news developments in the municipal bond market. For comments or questions contact paul.greaves@acuris.com

Debtwire Municipals Research team of Greg Clark and Anthia Ma discuss the latest product update which is called Eye on Data, which gives a visual snapshot of a highlighted sector or trend. Yong Lim, the Debtwire Municipals desk editor, is the moderator of the podcast. The Muni Lowdown is a weekly podcast recapping the previous week's significant news developments in the municipal bond market. For comments or questions contact paul.greaves@acuris.com

Las Vegas Monorail filed for Chapter 11 protections in Nevada bankruptcy court last week to clear the way for its sale to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, saying service disruptions from COVID-19 have left it without enough cash to continue operating beyond 30 November. Debtwire’s Senior Legal Analyst, Sarah Foss and Debtwire Municipals’ Chuck Stanley discuss the legal and financial ramifications. Yong Lim, the Debtwire Municipals desk editor, is the moderator of the podcast. The Muni Lowdown is a weekly podcast recapping the previous week's significant news developments in the municipal bond market. For comments or questions contact paul.greaves@acuris.com

Florida's Brightline Trains is increasingly challenged, said three portfolio managers and an analyst, as the South Florida rail remains offline after five months and has ended its marketing deal with Virgin Enterprises. Debtwire Municipals’ Simone Baribeau gets us on track with the details. Debtwire Municipals' Eye on Puerto Rico captures principal and interest defaults, draws on reserve funds, and similar events for every Puerto Rico obligor for which we have data. Head of Research Greg Clark discusses the research report. Yong Lim, the Debtwire Municipals desk editor, is the moderator of the podcast. The Muni Lowdown is a weekly podcast recapping the previous week's significant news developments in the municipal bond market. For comments or questions contact paul.greaves@acuris.com

Iron Hound Management was established in 2009 by Rob Verrone to advise on the workouts of commercial real estate loans following the financial crisis. The newfound urgency in workouts due to the COVID-19 economy has him drawing on that experience and more. Rob delivers the state-of-play on how servicers and CMBS investors are handling the distress.

New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) is poised to make “draconian” measures to bridge a pandemic-driven USD 12bn budget gap that could throw the agency into bankruptcy without federal intervention, MTA officials said during an emergency board meeting. Debtwire Municipals' Chuck Stanley discusses the scenario. The bankrupt Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority's potential agreement with the US Federal Emergency Management Authority, which could make billions of federal dollars available to rebuild the island's ailing power grid, is still very much up in the air, Efran Paredes, the utility's new executive director, said in an interview with Debtwire Municipals' Eva Llorens. Yong Lim, the Debtwire Municipals desk editor, is the moderator of the podcast. The Muni Lowdown is a weekly podcast recapping the previous week's significant news developments in the municipal bond market. For comments or questions contact paul.greaves@acuris.com

Fitch Ratings analyst Chelsea Richardson joins Debtwire Middle Market senior reporter Bill Weisbrod to talk about the Business Development Company (BDC) industry with second quarter earnings in the book. They discuss BDC asset quality, fund level leverage and other BDC portfolio matters.

Pricing services veteran JR Rieger discusses with Debtwire reporters Caitlin Devitt and Kathie O'Donnell how he and two other industry vets are forming a trade association to standardize how municipal bonds in the often-illiquid secondary market are valued. Evaluating and pricing muni bonds is “becoming more of a science, as it should be, and less of an art,” said Rieger, who publishes the Rieger Report LLC and previously worked in S&P’s pricing and index services. Rieger said the association, named for now the Global Association of Securities Pricing Analysts, will be aimed at pricing services vendors as well as pricing analysts at buy- and sellside firms, across securities markets. Accurately valuing municipal bonds, particularly in high-yield sectors that are generally illiquid, has always been challenging and becomes more difficult during economic downturns like the one that sparked turmoil in the muni market in March. Yong Lim, the Debtwire Municipals desk editor, is the moderator of the podcast.

For this episode, host Al Yoon chats with Jim Parrott, a nonresident fellow at the Urban Institute and co-owner of Parrott Ryan Advisors, which counsels financial institutions on primary and secondary mortgage market matters. Parrott is critical of the FHFA’s approach to mortgage finance including how its proposed capital rule wrongly approaches the GSEs as if they were banks and crushes the economics of one of their primary risk management tools, credit risk transfer securities.

Two weeks after it failed to clear the market, an Arizona Industrial Development Authority unrated financing for a sports facility returned, trimmed down and featuring enhanced terms to entice skittish investors. Debtwire Municipals Caitlin Devitt gives us the details. The Chicago Board of Education plans to issue bonds for Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in the next few months, said the district’s chief financial officer. Debtwire's Patrick Ferguson tells us the situation. The State of Illinois is not ready to say whether it will appeal a recent court decision that revives a lawsuit seeking to void USD 14.3bn of the state’s general obligation (GO) bonds. Debtwire's Caitlin Devitt explains the story. Yong Lim, the Debtwire Municipals desk editor, is the moderator of the podcast. The Muni Lowdown is a weekly podcast recapping the previous week's significant news developments in the municipal bond market. For comments or questions contact paul.greaves@acuris.com

A State of Hawaii taxable general obligation (GO) bond deal was upsized to USD 995m from USD 900m amid investor demand, with spreads in the 10-year maturity tightening by roughly 15bps from price guidance circulating this week. Debtwire Municipals’ reporters Eva Llorens and Kathie O’Donnell discuss the deal. Yong Lim, the Debtwire Municipals desk editor, is the moderator of the podcast. The Muni Lowdown is a weekly podcast recapping the previous week's significant news developments in the municipal bond market. For comments or questions contact paul.greaves@acuris.com

For this episode, host Al Yoon gets the lowdown from Athas Capital Group Co-CEO Brian O’Shaughnessy on how non-QM lending has rebounded after the sector was kicked to the curb in March. We discuss Athas’ products and how they are changing just a few weeks after their launch as the competitive landscape changes. We also look at the demand side of the equation as the COVID-19 pandemic lingers.

Creditflux sits down with Guggenheim’s Adrian Duffy to recap the European loan and CLO market in 2020 and discuss what path the recovery will take

For the July edition of the Middle Market Podcast, reporters Giovanna Bellotti Azevedo and Catherine Perloff sat down with James Van Horn, bankruptcy and restructuring lawyer at Barnes & Thornburg, to discuss how the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has affected distressed middle market retailers.

Nuveen’s High Yield Municipal Bond Fund’s and Intermediate Duration Municipal Bond Fund’s top holdings are Energy Harbor Corp, the power company at the heart of a scandal in Ohio that saw its stocks drop by more than 20% last week. Nuveen holds at least 35% of the energy company’s indirect equity and also sits on its board of directors. Douglas Johnston, a Nuveen managing director and senior research analyst, is one of eight board members, according to the company. Debtwire Municipals’ reporters Caitlin Devitt and Patrick Ferguson investigate the situation. Yong Lim, the Debtwire Municipals desk editor, is the moderator of the podcast. The Muni Lowdown is a weekly podcast recapping the previous week's significant news developments in the municipal bond market. For comments or questions contact paul.greaves@acuris.com Here's a brief video recap: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/debtwire_municipalbonds-nuveen-activity-6694324582154850304-y7lZ/

For this episode, host Al Yoon and Debtwire Assistant Editor Maura Sadovi welcome Jen Ripper and John Swarr, investment specialists at Penn Mutual Asset Management. We discuss just how bad commercial and residential mortgage losses could be, and where it’s safe to invest ahead of the fallout. While historical CMBS losses have been low, Penn Mutual’s actions speak loudly: It’s sticking with “up in quality” bonds with lots of credit support.

The fiscal plan for the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA), released by Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) on 29 June, does little to advance the restructuring or to provide useful information about it. The plan’s “debt sustainability analysis”, for instance, accounts for only one-half page of the 89-page document. Debtwire Municipals' Head of Research Greg Clark gives us his take on the fiscal plans. Municipalities that filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protections in the years following the Great Recession tended to see improved public safety outcomes, compared with similarly situated jurisdictions, a trend that could have wider implications for public service delivery under municipal bankruptcy, researchers for St. John’s University and Arizona University said during an online conference. Debtwire Municipals' Chuck Stanley explains the outcomes for us. Yong Lim, the Debtwire Municipals desk editor, is the moderator of the podcast. The Muni Lowdown is a weekly podcas

In the primary market, The Regents of the University of California brought USD 2.6bn of AA-rated general revenue bonds via joint senior managers JPMorgan and Wells Fargo Securities. The deal included USD 790m of tax-exempt 2020 Series BE bonds. Debtwire Municipals' Kathie O'Donnell breaks down the deal for us. On 30 June, the FOMB released the commonwealth’s final budget for FY21 (ends 30 June 2021). Because both FOMB and the commonwealth lack recent audited or unaudited financial statements that serve as a baseline in compiling a budget, the document is of dubious value to investors and other parties. Debtwire Municipals' Head of Research Greg Clark gives us his take on the fiscal plans. Yong Lim, the Debtwire Municipals desk editor, is the moderator of the podcast. The Muni Lowdown is a weekly podcast recapping the previous week's significant news developments in the municipal bond market. For comments or questions contact paul.greaves@acuris.com

For this episode, host Al Yoon welcomes Paul Norris, head of structured products at Conning. We discuss how his team is putting money to work in residential mortgage investments when it’s anybody’s guess how distressed the sector will become during the COVID-19 pandemic. We also discuss other ABS sectors he likes, and doesn’t like.

Puerto Rico’s Financial Oversight and Management Board (FOMB) last week announced it has certified 2020 fiscal plans for three of the territory’s highways, water and power authorities and submitted revenue forecasts for a number of entities under its jurisdiction. Debtwire Municipals Eva Llorens explains the current situation. Preston Hollow Capital LLC (PHC), in its second round of litigation with competitor Nuveen LLC, has asked a Delaware Superior Court for a partial summary judgment in its favor over defamation claims. Debtwire's Caitlin Devitt brings us up to date on this legal saga. Yong Lim, the Debtwire Municipals desk editor, is the moderator of the podcast. The Muni Lowdown is a weekly podcast recapping the previous week's significant news developments in the municipal bond market. For comments or questions contact paul.greaves@acuris.com