Bond Dealers of America board chair George Barbar is taking the helm of the Washington, D.C.-based trade association during a critical period for the municipal market as Congress eyes changes to the market's signature tax exemption.
"The BDA does a great job of hitting on critical issues whatever they are at the time, and the tax exemption is definitely one of them this year," said Barbar, a Florida-based senior managing director and head of regional development and strategy at Mesirow.
The group is making "a critical push on the Hill," to "preserve and protect the tax exemption," Barbar said. The BDA has a series of fly-ins scheduled for the year, the next one set for April 10, and every two months after that for as long as reconciliation tax talks persist.
"Beyond the fly-ins and Hill meetings, the BDA is also partnering with other issuer groups to enhance the impact we have and really do our best to make a difference for the fixed-income community," Barbar said.
After serving as vice chair last year, Barbar was nominated as chair last fall and formally stepped into the role on the start of the BDA's fiscal year on March 1. He is also founder and president of the South Florida Bond Traders Association and serves as chair of the Treasury Investment Council for the State of Florida.
On the regulatory side, Barbar said the BDA's focus will be
The group sees opportunity on the regulatory front to advance members' priorities, said BDA CEO Mike Nicholas.
The year is "challenging on the legislative front but opportunistic on the regulatory front," Nicholas said. "We want to be really proactive and more aggressive in the sense that we're looking at the rulebooks, we're looking at market structure, to identify issues that inhibit the free flow of capital and we then plan to present that to the SEC, to FINRA and the MSRB with a market-driven solution in our back pocket," he said. "We think it will lead to smarter products coming out of Washington and smarter and more efficient policies."
Barbar takes over from John Miller, chief operating officer of fixed income at Piper Sandler & Co., who led the BDA board last year. Under Miller's leadership, the group
"It's easy for us to think big and think wide, but it's also really important to narrow it in and focus in on what is it that's really important to our membership group and what is it that we can get accomplished," Miller said. "I think we worked hard to do that this past year and I know that's the direction we're going to go going forward."
Barbar noted that the BDA has added two new voting directors to its board, Ameriprise Financial and Edward Jones. The move "gives us some great retail presence," in addition to Wells Fargo, he said. The board is comprised of "banks and nonbanks, regional and primary — it's a great balance of the fixed-income markets."
