HAMILTON, Bermuda–(Business Wire)–Bond insurers Assured Guaranty Municipal Corp. (AGM) and Municipal Assurance Corp. (MAC), subsidiaries of Assured Guaranty Ltd. (NYSE:AGO) (together with its subsidiaries, Assured Guaranty), are providing on Bloomberg terminals indicative pricing for secondary market insurance on municipal bond issues they have pre-qualified. The current list of pre-qualified municipal bonds comprises approximately 8,000 issuers and 45,000 CUSIPs.
“We are pleased to have worked with Bloomberg to add this valuable feature for its subscribers. Traders, institutional investors and retail trading desks that are considering adding bond insurance to municipal bonds in the secondary market may now find indicative insurance availability and pricing information for AGM or MAC insurance on the Bloomberg All Quotes page. ‘ALLQ’ is the same page used for bond pricing information, trade history, valuations, and offering levels,” said Bill Hogan, Senior Managing Director, Public Finance. “Adding municipal bond insurance in the secondary market may enhance a bond’s market liquidity: approximately $500 million of bonds guaranteed by Assured Guaranty companies are traded daily.”
AGM and MAC municipal bond insurance policies unconditionally and irrevocably guarantee payment of a bond’s principal and interest when due. Assured Guaranty companies currently protect municipal bonds with an outstanding gross par amount of almost $300 billion. In addition, Assured Guaranty secondary market insurance may allow an investor to meet portfolio rating requirements; provide significant downgrade protection; and reduce the capital requirement for a regulated holder of the bond.
AGM and MAC are rated AA+ (stable outlook) by Kroll Bond Rating Agency and AA (stable outlook) by Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. AGM is also rated A2 (stable outlook) by Moody’s Investors Service.
To view AGM and MAC insurance pricing, users simply load a nine-digit municipal CUSIP and navigate to the All Quotes page with the command ALLQ (e.g., {123456789 Muni ALLQ }). Indicative prices for AGM and MAC to insure $1 million in par amount appear in the Ask Price column, expressed as the price per bond. The amount of insurance potentially available is also displayed if the user activates the Show Bid/Ask Sizes column in the ALLQ Settings menu.
The list of eligible CUSIPs and the related indicative price and capacity information are updated for each business day. To initiate a purchase of insurance, users may contact Assured Guaranty’s secondary market desk over the Bloomberg network by sending messages to Richard Cassata, [email protected], Leonard Lasek, [email protected], or Dana Villanova, [email protected]. Users may also telephone (212) 408-6067.
If no insurance pricing is shown on Bloomberg for a municipal bond on which a user wishes to obtain bond insurance, users are encouraged to use the contact information above to request approval and a quote.
Feb 16, 2016 20:53 UTC