Hood River, Oregon, March 6, 2024 – Kestrel announced today that Build America Mutual, a leading insurer of US municipal bonds, has selected Kestrel’s Sustainability Intelligence data for enterprise-wide use. Kestrel’s data will enhance BAM’s existing credit underwriting and risk management processes, with a particular focus on identifying municipal bond issuers that are taking proactive steps to improve their communities’ long-term resilience, including the ability to recover from damage caused by natural disasters.
“Kestrel’s data is valuable because it matches our granular focus on individual issuers and helps our underwriters identify long-term risks,” said BAM Chief Risk Officer Laura Levenstein. “BAM’s guaranty is unconditional and irrevocable for the life of the bonds we insure and is backed with deep credit analysis on each credit.”
Kestrel’s offering is the first sustainability solution to tackle the entire municipal market at the series level. It serves as a benchmark and provides original analysis and transparency on issuers’ concrete actions to lower greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and incorporate sustainability in bond-financed activities. Kestrel also reveals the presence of sector-specific risk mitigants. By using over 100 distinct methodologies, Kestrel assesses municipal bonds for sustainability and impact with a focus on materiality. To support their research and commitment to transparency BAM sought a sustainability data provider that could deliver high-quality, comprehensive coverage at the series level.
“Kestrel has been at the forefront of providing sustainability intelligence on US Public Finance with our Second Party Opinions and reporting on green, social, and sustainability bonds,” said Monica Reid, CEO of Kestrel. “We aim to empower insurers, investors, and other market participants with sustainability insights and new information to help them accurately price risk. Our offering reveals sustainability attributes and risk mitigants in bond-financed activities, and we are the first in the market to do this. With their focus on transparency and purpose of providing a financial guaranty to lower issuers’ cost of borrowing, BAM was a natural fit for our data and analytics. In light of the shifting regulatory landscape and the demand for long-term risk-adjusted returns, investors need the full picture in terms of sustainability fundamentals and risk mitigants.”
About Build America Mutual
BAM is a mutual bond insurance company operated for the benefit of its members – the cities, states, and other municipal entities that use BAM’s financial guaranty to lower their cost of borrowing. BAM is the preferred provider of bond insurance for the National League of Cities. As of December 31, 2024, BAM’s insured par outstanding totaled more than $100 billion for more than 5,000 municipal issuer-members from 49 states. Learn more at buildamerica.com/about-bam
About Kestrel
Kestrel provides Sustainability Intelligence™ for municipal markets, helping to set the market standard for sustainable finance. Kestrel is a leading provider of external reviews for green, social, and sustainability bond transactions and a Climate Bonds Initiative Approved Verifier. The company is qualified to evaluate corporate and municipal bonds, as well as the issuers, in all asset classes worldwide for conformance with international green and social bond standards.