Press

“They (Moody’s) really are putting all of these coastal municipalities on notice. And it’s not just the municipalities. Importantly, they’re putting the states on notice,” says Mayra Rodriguez Valladares, managing principal of MRV Associates, a bank and capital markets consulting firm. States with large coastal populations and economies face credit risks over a multi-decade horizon because of a weaker economy, increased maintenance costs and lost tax revenue, the report states. That’s going to be particularly hard on financially stressed states like New Jersey, Valladares says.”

Rodríguez Valladares said banks still face plenty of risks. Many businesses are still in forbearance programs and could owe more once those end. Further federal relief is uncertain, and more people are likely to lose their jobs. “It would not surprise me to see banks in the first and second quarter of next year to again be increasing their loan loss reserves,” Valladares said.

“An ANPR is not a regulation or even a proposed one, its purpose is for regulators and government agencies to solicit comments from the public on a wide range of questions,” said Mayra Rodriguez Valladares of MRV Associates, a regulatory consultancy. “Until financial institutions are fined a lot more, closed down, and those who look away are hauled off in handcuffs, no ANPR or even bad headlines will do much.”

“Corporate defaults on loan obligations are higher now than in 2009, right after the massive crash, as banking expert Mayra Rodriguez Valladares wrote at Forbes. The total number of defaults could pass those in 2009. That’s bad news for the bundled debt business. According to data from S&P Global Ratings, hundreds of CLOs have been downgraded to junk status.”

“Providing a sign of the gross fiscal mismanagement is fellow Forbes contributor Mayra Rodriguez Valladares, who noted how excessive use of leveraged loans in PE-owned firms has become unmistakable. The number of third-party rated companies defaulting is on a sharp rise and more than half are PE-owned, the results of leveraged buyouts. As she wrote: During the first half of this year, rated companies owned by such private equity firms as Blackstone BX -1.9%, Goldman Sachs Group GS GS -0.8%, KKR KKR KKR -0.1%, and Thomas Lee have defaulted; Ares Management ARES ARES +0.3% owns the highest number of defaulted private-equity owned rated companies.

As Mayra Rodriguez Valladares discusses in a 2019 Forbes article, Latinos represent a great market opportunity for financial services providers, such as banks and fintechs. The article cites research that shows this group also represents the largest demographic in new entrepreneurship, which is the backbone of the American economy