Benchmark launches municipal bond ratings with 'no conflicts' claim

By Toni Weeks

San Diego, Feb. 16 - Benchmark Bond Ratings, Inc. announced its new bond-rating service that it claims will be free of conflicts.

Benchmark president Carl G. Dincesen said that the AAA to D rating system used for the last 100 years does not fully serve the interests of investors.

"This is particularly true for those who own, manage, or trade municipal bonds," he said in a news release.

According to Dincesen, Benchmark is the only rating company for municipal bonds not supported in whole or part by issuers. The company's ratings are private and thus free of any conflict of interest that might dilute the analytic process. Furthermore, issuers can't use Benchmark ratings to sell bonds.

"We pinpoint risk so that investors can make better risk reward decisions and believe that public credit ratings, while necessary, are not always sufficient," he added.

The firm's expertise is state and local debt. However, Benchmark's protection margin rating scale can be applied to rating the risk of default on any kind of long-term debt.

Dincesen, a municipal bond credit expert, was an independent consultant from 2003 to 2009, advising hedge funds and other institutional investors about credit risks in municipal bonds. Prior to that he was head of public finance credit risk management at Ambac Financial Group, where he worked for 18 years.

Benchmark is based in Garden City, N.Y.

© 2015 Prospect News.
All content on this website is protected by copyright law in the U.S. and elsewhere. For the use of the person downloading only.
Redistribution and copying are prohibited by law without written permission in advance from Prospect News.
Redistribution or copying includes e-mailing, printing multiple copies or any other form of reproduction.