Some of the muni markets biggest bond insurers are making significant changes in leadership and structure in efforts to address their current problems stemming from exposure to subprime mortgage-backed securities.
Take Joseph Jay Brown, who is back at the helm of
Brown returns to MBIA, the parent of financial guarantor MBIA Insurance Corp., where he served as chief executive officer and chairman from 1999 through May 2004.
Also,
Ambac spokeswoman Vandan Sharma would not confirm reports that the company would sell $2 billion in discounted shares to existing investors, although she did say that Ambac is pursuing various capital plans.
The latest moves by the monoline bond insurers reflect the changing nature of both the municipal market and the structured finance markets. As these markets have shifted, changes in leadership and risk management have become necessary and caused the companies to reevaluate their business models.
The Most Serious Challenges
Brown takes over at MBIA at a time when the
In an interview with SourceMedia sister publication The Bond Buyer later in the day, Brown said that in evaluating MBIAs current situation, it was clear to him that whether it is collateralized debt obligations or other kinds of synthetic wrapped securities, they do not work very well in the financial guaranty model.
[Tuesday] morning, I told the employees that asked the question that as of this morning, we arent doing anymore [derivatives], Brown said. We are just not going to do that type of business going forward.
Brown also said the current model for financial guaranty companies can make it difficult to raise capital. As an example, he mentioned the more than $2 billion that MBIA has raised in the past few months, calling it expensive capital.
Weve been confronted with an interesting set of circumstances that demonstrate that the way the model is currently constructed creates real obstacles to raising capital on an efficient basis, Brown said.
Subdivided
Looking down the road as far as five to 10 years, Brown continued, MBIA will exist in more entities and subdivisions than it currently does, in a structure aimed at getting the company through its current struggles. Brown said the company would not look to separate its business into the good bank, bad bank model.
Brown also said in the interview that on Friday he spoke to Dinallo. The talk centered around the future of the financial guaranty business and the credit ratings issue, to which banks and other counterparties are exposed in the form of guarantees pledged by MBIA and other insurers, Brown said.
Were trying to learn from what [insurance regulators] are doing and we will see if there are any particular opportunities to do something quicker, Brown said. Its not to solve our issues, because we dont think we have problems, but to be responsible to the banks.
MBIAs announcement comes after a weekend that saw further developments among its bond insurance peers. Ambac and
On Monday, market sources confirmed that CIFG chief risk officer Chuck Webster left the triple-A bond insurer last week.
At Ambac, David Wallis is slated to become the insurers chief risk officer, following the departure of William McKinnon. Wallis had been head of portfolio and market risk management, and he will oversee a risk department that will retain individual approaches to public finance and structured finance, the company said in a release.
Ambacs Sharma said the elevation of Wallis to chief risk officer reflects Ambacs continued evaluation of its various lines of business. Sharma mentioned the unsettled state of the structured finance markets.
We dont have any certainty about how the whole structure finance business is going forward, Sharma said. Its premature to say what you will write and what you will not write without doing the work.
MBIAs Brown said that while the bond insurers are experiencing problems, he does not foresee a permanent decline in the use of bond insurance. Bond insurance gained traction among investors and issuers after the New York City fiscal crisis in the 1970s, and since then, it has experienced periods of growth and contraction. Opponents of bond insurance have been most upset by the growth, Brown said.
The people that hated [bond insurance] the most were the sophisticated bond investors because they felt they could buy bonds uninsured, they did not need us to analyze them, Brown said. But there are lots of little people and medium-sized people that buy bond insurance for peace of mind.
Looking at the environment for bond insurance in the near term would not be an accurate way to gauge the prospects for the industry over the long term, he said.
No one should look at this week, last week, or the last three months as indicative of how this business will behave over the next decade, Brown said.