FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2000-169 Senior SEC Official Speaks to the Alaska Government Finance Officers Association Washington, DC, November 9, 2000 -- On November 10, 2000, Mary N. Simpkins, Senior Special Counsel in the Office of Municipal Securities of the Securities and Exchange Commission, will address the Alaska Government Finance Officers Association at their 2000 Fall Conference in Juneau, Alaska. The SEC has focused on improving the municipal market over the last five years. Simpkins' presentation is part of the effort to improve disclosure practices by state and local government issuers. Simpkins's remarks will include important information for Alaska issuers. The SEC has brought enforcement actions against more than 40 issuers of municipal securities and issuer officials for faulty disclosure in the last five years. Her speech and the Commission's efforts are important as well to the increasing number of individual investors buying municipal bonds. Today next-day price and trade data are available to investors on the Internet, and annual financial and operating data and event notices are now centrally available along with original offering documents. Only five years ago, such resources were not available to investors. States and local governments issued more than $37 billion of municipal bonds last year. Over $1.5 trillion of municipal bonds are currently outstanding in the United States. Individual investors hold more than 73% of this amount- either directly or through mutual funds. In 1999, Alaska communities borrowed more than $1.5 billion in the municipal bond market in 31 offerings, ranking it 36th in the nation. Other topics include: ú Secondary market disclosure ú Selective disclosure, and ú Recent enforcement actions For further information contact: Mary N. Simpkins (202) 942-7308 or Martha Mahan Haines (202) 942-7315 # # # Getting Information About Municipal Bond Issuers and Conduit Borrowers Annual Financial Statements and Notices Financial statements are a treasure trove of information for investors: they tell you whether a bond issuer or borrower is or is not in a healthy financial condition and why. Audited annual financial statements, operating data and notices of the occurrence of certain material events for many bond issuers and conduit borrowers can be obtained for a fee from the Nationally Recognized Municipal Information Repositories (NRMSIRs) or State Information Depositories listed below. During the sale period for an issue, your broker is required in many transactions to send you a copy of the preliminary official statement (if one exists) upon request. After a bond is issued, if you have purchased a bond a copy of the Official Statement should be supplied to you by your broker not later than the time you receive the confirmation statement. Brokers are also required to supply a copy of the Official Statement upon request for at least 25 days after the end of the underwriting period, regardless of whether you have bought a bond. Official Statements may also be obtained from the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board at 1150 18th Street, N.W., Suite 400, Washington, DC 20036; phone (202) 223-9347. If the conduit borrower is a registered company, you can find information in the company's quarterly reports on Form 10-Q, annual reports (with audited financial statements) on Form 10-K, and periodic reports of significant events on Form 8-K. It's usually pretty easy to find information about large municipal issuers and conduit borrowers from the companies or issuers themselves, newspapers, brokerage firms, NRMSIRs, SIDs, the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board and the SEC. By contrast, it can be extremely difficult to find information about small municipal issuers and unregistered conduit borrowers. In all cases, be sure to ask your broker for this information. Other Types of Information To find out whether a company has been cleared to sell its securities in a particular state and whether it is in good standing, you can contact the following: ú Your state securities regulator. Contact the North American Securities Administrators Association to get the name and phone number of your state securities regulator to see if the sale of the bonds is permitted in your state. ú The Secretary of State where the conduit borrower is incorporated. You can find out whether a conduit borrower is a corporation in good standing and has filed annual reports with the state through the secretary of state where the company is incorporated. ú You can find general financial information about companies and issuers of municipal securities from reference books and commercial databases. The SEC cannot recommend or endorse any particular research firm, its personnel, or its products. But there are a number of resources you may consult: The SEC's web site: http://www.sec.gov (Investor Education and Assistance) Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board, 1150 18th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 223-9347; http://www.msrb.org Government Finance Officers Association, 180 N. Michigan Ave., Suite 800, Chicago, IL 60601 (312) 977-9700; http://www.gfoa.org The Bond Market Association, 40 Broad Street, New York, New York 10004-2373; http://www.investinginbonds.com [This site includes many hyperlinks to other sources of information.] Bloomberg News Service and Lexis/Nexis provide news stories about issuers and conduit borrowers. Dun & Bradstreet, Moody's Investors Service, Hoover's Profiles, and Standard & Poor's provide financial data. These and other sources are available in many libraries or law and business school libraries. Municipal Market Statistics ú $1.5 trillion of municipal bonds are outstanding in the United States ú Individual investors hold more than 73% of this amount- either directly or through mutual funds ú In 1999, Alaska communities borrowed more than $1.5 billion in the municipal bond market in 31 offerings, ranking 36th in the nation. SEC Activities The Commission has ú Taken over 90 enforcement actions against municipal market participants during the last five years; ú Worked with the MSRB to restricting political contributions by underwriters and financial advisors to officials of local governments with which they do (or hope to do) business; ú Adopted a rule requiring specified information to be available to investors in the secondary market; and ú Improved price transparency in the municipal market. Tools for Municipal Bond Investors Investors in municipal bonds should be sure to take advantage of these tools when investing: 1. Offering Documents. For most municipal bonds, most official statements are available from the Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board and the central repositories known as Nationally Recognized Municipal Securities Information Repositories ("NRMSIRs") listed at www.sec.gov/consumer/nrmsir.htm on the SEC website. Participating brokers are also required by federal law to provide official statements upon request during and for a short time following an offering. 2. Continuing Disclosure. For most municipal bonds issued after July 1995, annual financial and operating information and notice of certain events is available from the NRMSIRs listed on the SEC website, or by asking a broker to obtain it. A small charge may be involved in obtaining such information. 3.Trade Data. Next-day price and volume information is now available for any municipal bond trading four times or more the previous trading day at: http://www.investinginbonds.com a web site maintained by The Bond Market Association.