MSRB elects FY 2025 leadership

The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has elected Warren “Bo” Daniels, managing director and head of public finance at Loop Capital Markets to serve as chair of the board for FY 2025, with Jennie Bennett, associate vice president for finance at the University of Chicago elected as vice chair. 

That came out of the MSRB’s final quarterly meeting for FY 2024 held July 24-25, where the board also approved a slightly increased budget and approved a request for information to gather market feedback on the board’s fee structure.

“I am pleased to announce the election of Bo and Jennie as our incoming Chair and Vice Chair,” said MSRB Chief Executive Mark Kim.

Daniels is based out of Atlanta and on top of establishing Loop Capital Markets’ Atlanta office, he also ran the Atlanta offices for PNC, Morgan Stanley, as well as Goldman Sachs’s Chicago Office. He has been credited as the senior banker on over $45 billion in financings throughout his career, including in higher education, general obligation, sales tax, water and sewer, single and multi-family housing and complex asset-backed and structured financings.

Prior to incoming vice chair Bennett’s tenure at the University of Chicago, she was the chief financial officer for the City of Chicago, as well as the chief financial officer for Chicago Public Schools. She began her career in New York under Morgan Stanley’s Municipal Securities Division.

Both Meredith Hathorn, who has served as chair of the MSRB board for the past two years, in addition to being a managing partner at Foley & Judell, as well as Angelia Schmidt, current vice chair and managing director and head of underwriting at UBS will step down at the conclusion of the FY 2024 fiscal year on Sept. 30.

“It has been an honor to serve as Chair for two terms while serving on MSRB’s Board throughout the past five years,” Hathorn said. “I am immensely proud of what we have accomplished and appreciate the important contributions of our stakeholders, who have positively impacted our work to fulfill our Congressional mandate and uphold the public trust.”

The board has also approved a $48.8 million budget for FY 2025, a 2.9% increase from the prior year. The MSRB said this budget follows “extensive stakeholder outreach and engagement” and a more detailed budget summary is coming in October.

“Funding the future of regulation for the municipal securities market while demonstrating budget transparency and accountability remains of paramount importance,” Hathorn said. “Our meetings with stakeholders throughout 2024 have given us valuable feedback and perspective as we approved this budget.”

The MSRB’s budget has been the source of much back and forth between regulators after the Securities and Exchange Commission suspended the 2024 rate card model and the MSRB removed the filing and reverted back to its 2023 budget for the remainder of this year.

Following that, the board committed to “convening a series of meetings with stakeholders” in order to “substantively engage in a dialgoue that will move us forward in a sustainable way,” the MSRB said. They’ve held some of those and are continuing to engage with the market.

The board has also approved a request for information on its rate card model, expected in the coming months. That was approved alongside certain tweaks to Rule G-12(c) on inter-dealer confirmations, concerning codifying certain interpretive guidance into its FAQs, in addition to authorizing the publication of a concept release concerning the board’s collection of pre-trade municipal market data.

The MSRB also discussed potential modifications to Rule D-15 on the definition of a sophisticated municipal market professional and discussed supervisory obligations in the post-pandemic workplace environment, under MSRB Rule G-27 on supervision.

“MSRB’s commitment to stakeholder engagement on these important initiatives will remain front and center as we move forward,” Kim said.