About Us
The Carolinas Municipal Advisory Council, originally incorporated as the North Carolina Municipal Council, Inc. was founded in 1932 to assist bondholder groups in seeking remedies to default situations. Because of bank closings and economic conditions during the "Great Depression," the Municipal Council was employed by fifteen counties and 17 municipalities to handle refunding operations where payment at par was unlikely, or when extension of maturities was necessary. During this time, sixty-nine of North Carolina's one hundred counties were in default on their bonds, as were one hundred fifty-two municipalities.
In the latter part of the 1930's as the default situations began to clear, the Council moved its focus to reporting on the credit standing of local issuers and evaluating "credit quality" for dealers who would underwrite and trade municipal bonds. The Council began to concentrate on providing current financial information to its member firms in order to keep them and their clients informed, so they could make prudent decisions regarding investments and trades in North Carolina municipal bonds. The Municipal Council began working on a system of ratings about 1937. The first rating on a local issuer in North Carolina was released in 1941.
Noting the success of the North Carolina Municipal Council, several banks and broker-dealers in South Carolina formed the South Carolina Municipal Council in 1951. The North Carolina Municipal Council and the South Carolina Municipal Council have worked together and shared staff since that time, with offices in Raleigh.
The company was renamed "The Carolinas Municipal Advisory Council, Inc." in 2001, to reflect the joint operations.
Since its founding, the Municipal Council has worked to provide valuable information to the dealer community. Additionally, the objective of the Council and its staff is to assist the local issuers in improving their credit quality and to improve their access to capital for essential municipal projects. The Council has worked closely with the Local Government Commission, a division of the North Carolina State Treasurer's Office, which has statutory responsibility for debt issued by local governments in North Carolina. The Council has also enjoyed a good working relationship with the South Carolina Treasurer's Office. We are thankful for their assistance in areas of mutual interest, which has allowed the local governments to issue bonds at lower interest rates, saving money for the taxpayers and ratepayers of both states.
