MSRB Announces New Resources on Disclosures to Municipal Bondholders
The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board ("MSRB") released an educational podcast and a report, both of which are intended to emphasize the importance of disclosures to bondholders.
The podcast, titled "Providing Disclosure Information to Investors," provides an overview of an issuers' obligation to disclose important financial information to investors through MSRB's EMMA Web site. In the podcast, the MSRB recommended the following four steps that state and local government officials should take in order to ensure continuous disclosure:
- identify the required disclosures;
- establish disclosure practices;
- schedule e-mail reminders for recurring financial disclosures; and
- make disclosures publicly available on EMMA.
Additionally, the MSRB published a new report on the volume and types of municipal securities disclosures submitted to the EMMA Web site, which provided data about the nearly 700,000 documents submitted to EMMA between July 2009 and June 2014. The report found that submissions increased in June 2014, and that bond calls were the most common type of submission, accounting for 36 percent of all submissions.
See: MSRB Podcast; Transcription of MSRB Podcast; MSRB Report.