MSRB Publishes First Report on Timing of Municipal Bond Annual Financial Disclosures (with Lofchie Comment)

The MSRB released a report which documents the statistics of the average time it takes the issuers of municipal securities, and other obligated persons to make their financial information available to the public after the end of a fiscal year. The report is the first of its kind. It analyzes the submissions of financial disclosures made to the MSRB's Electronic Municipal Market Access ("EMMA") system between January 2010 and June 2013, and measures the number of days after the end of a fiscal year in which audited financial statements and annual financial information were made available.

Lofchie Comment: Financial data provided and made available by municipal entities is significantly less current than that made available by corporate entities. Little progress has been made in bringing out such information in a more timely way.

See: MSRB Report "Continuing Disclosure Report Supplement: Timing of Annual Financial Disclosures"; MSRB Press Release.