Underwriter
As one of the nation’s leading underwriters of municipal bonds, Morgan Keegan offers a comprehensive array of services to state and local governments, utilities, housing authorities, airports, health care providers, higher education institutions, corporations and other entities that issue taxable or tax-exempt debt.
Morgan Keegan was the nation’s ninth leading underwriter in 2011 as senior manager 488 issues with a par amount of $9.2 billion. Also, the firm ranked:
- No. 1 in Alabama, New Hampshire, Tennessee and Virginia
- No. 1 in number of completed transactions, in the 10-state Southeast region of the country that includes Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Virginia
- No. 1 in competitive Qualified School Construction Bond issues
Rankings are compiled by Thomson Reuters
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Distribution and Marketing
At the heart of Morgan Keegan’s unsurpassed distribution capability are our Fixed Income sales people who are extremely fluent with taxable and tax-exempt municipal bonds and have expertise with all types of bond structures and credits under all market conditions. In addition, our trading and underwriting professionals on our four municipaldesks average more than 20 years in the business, managing 751 issues worth more than $13.4 billion in 2010 alone. Our investor coverage includes:
- Retail
Morgan Keegan’s Private Client Group includes 1,052 registered representatives who currently manage over 403,000 retail investor accounts with $80 billion in assets in all 50 states.This group targets high net worth individuals and medium and small-sized businesses across the country.
- Institutional
Our institutional fixed income sales force is one of the largest in the country. The firm has over 7,000 institutional accounts with municipal debt holdings while the typical investment bank maintains only 4,000 of these accounts. We enjoy long-standing, strong relationships with the largest institutional investors. We have 20 senior institutional municipal salespeople dedicated to marketing municipal products to the largest institutional buyers of municipal debt.
- Middle Market
We have the largest middle market fixed income institutional generalist sales force in the country with 123 salespersons covering more than 6,100 middle market and regional institutional accounts across the nation. Morgan Keegan consistently and effectively enhances its municipal bond activity by making these investors that are under-served by other major broker-dealers its core focus group.
Refundings
Refinancing existing high-coupon debt can save a borrower a significant amount of money, which can be used for other purposes. Morgan Keegan’s analysts monitor numerous jurisdictions’ existing indebtedness and constantly look for issues that are attractive refunding candidates. We keep abreast of the myriad of oft-changing federal regulations that affect refundings. We have state-of-the-art software that analyzes the benefits of a particular refunding, conducts sensitivity analyses, and structures new bonds, taking into consideration the issuer’s outstanding debt structure.
Variable Rate Products
Morgan Keegan is a leader in the issuance of new variable rate products as well as the underwriting and the remarketing of variable rate issues. Our knowledge of the variable rate market insures aggressive pricing of all variable rate issues for which we serve as remarketing agent. Our rates are competitive with benchmark indices such as LIBOR and TBMA on comparable issues. Our experienced sales force and broad range of products offer finance options to meet the specific and varied needs of issuing clients.
Financial Structured Products
Economic growth, job creation and new business startups are vital to municipalities. To support debt issues, innovative financing structures and alternative revenue sources are often needed. With a constantly changing market, Morgan Keegan has provided innovative solutions in different interest rate markets since the early 1990’s to help municipal issuers maximize opportunities with new and existing debt. Let our experts guide you through the type of financing that will support your debt issue.
Industrial Development
Industrial development bond (IDB) issues are inherently more complex transactions than traditional municipal bond issues. This is due to the presence of a corporate borrower, which brings with it an entirely different set of challenges. The analysis of a corporation’s credit strength is obviously quite different from that of a municipality. In the case of IDBs, the corporate borrower is usually a small, private company with little or no public information available. For this reason third party credit enhancement in the form of a bank letter of credit or guaranty from another corporate entity, such as a property and casualty insurance company, is almost always required. Morgan Keegan has longstanding relationships with numerous domestic and foreign banks, and we have been able to effect successful introductions of borrowers and LOC banks. There are many legal and regulatory hurdles an IDB must overcome. Morgan Keegan’s IDB specialists stay abreast of the changing federal and state laws that can affect IDBs.
Lease-Backed Debt
A municipality or state may wish to finance assets but not have the debt count against its general obligation debt limit. Or there could be statutory limitations on issuing conventional debt. For this reason, many jurisdictions may choose to lease the assets, whether it be a new courthouse, some police cars, or something else. This can be accomplished by selling bonds that are secured by the lease payments rather than some other source that may be more restrictive in its use. One of the most popular structures is the certificate of participation (“COP”) structure.
Auction Rate Securities
Morgan Keegan plays multiple roles in the auction rate securities market, including providing services to issuers of auction rate securities, acting as an agent for investors (both Morgan Keegan private clients and institutional clients) and purchasing and selling as principal for Morgan Keegan's own account. To learn more, see the following links.
