Public Finance

Public Finance has been a core business at Cabrera since the firm’s inception in 2001. As such, the Public Finance department receives the full support of senior management including the commitment of capital to support our clients at the time of pricing. Cabrera has a long storied history of providing capital and balance sheet to support our issuer clients and we continue to do so today.

The Public Finance Department is staffed by finance professionals having a diverse array of experience from both the issuer and public finance side. The banking team has successfully priced and closed transactions in a multitude of sectors and a wide array of the municipal credit spectrum. Since 2020, Cabrera has served as lead or co-lead on over 80 transactions for over $25 billion in par and co-managed over 460 transactions for well over $206 billion in par. The public finance bankers are supported by talented and experienced analytical staff specializing in bond finance.

Cabrera’s Public Finance robust primary market activity has been a mainstay in Chicago since the early days of Cabrera Capital, ranking in the top of the negotiated lead, co-lead and co-managed rankings. However, Cabrera has also had the privilege to serve some of the largest and most sophisticated state and local governments in the country. Our public finance group covers clients from Texas, California, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Washington DC, Florida, Georgia and Arizona, among others. More importantly, we have served most of these clients multiple times over, an affirmation of the quality work product we provide. From this repeat business and our ever-expanding new client list, the Public Finance group continues to expand.

Recently Cabrera has committed to growing our Public Finance practice with strategic hires from Wall Street and Regional firms alike, in California, New York and Texas, including our Head of Public finance based in Texas, Mario Carrasco. This commitment to our Public Finance Department provides our clients with not only a firm with a proven track record of success in the primary market, but also a proven track record of supporting our public finance clients in the competitive and secondary municipal bond market as well. With the recent addition of Wall Street veteran Tom Rasmussen to lead Cabrera’s Municipal Capital Markets team, Cabrera’s relationships and leverage of our buy side tier 1-3 clients has never been stronger. Lead Municipal Bond Underwriter, Merita Kulpinski has served in her capacity at Cabrera for 17 years at Cabrera and has been a municipal underwriter for decades, underwriting over 1000 transactions at the firm. Our Public Finance team works closely with our trading and underwriting desk to provide current market data to our clients on a regular basis. Please contact Mario Carrasco at mcarrasco@cabreracapital.com to be added to our mailing list to receive this information.

We thank you for your support and look forward to working with you in the future.

Contact

Mario Carrasco

MANAGING DIRECTOR

Public Finance

mcarrasco@cabreracapital.com

(210) 857-8517

An experienced banking team dedicated to providing superb transaction execution

An Issuer-side understanding of government finance, accounting, budgeting and debt finance.

Unparalleled access to our experienced sales, trading and underwriting professionals

Extensive investment in human capital and state of the art technology necessary to successfully access the taxable bond market on behalf of our municipal clients.

Commitment on the part of senior management to support our clients in the most important way, by underwriting bonds.

Public Finance Sectors

General Obligation

Cabrera’s Public Finance group has had the privilege to serve numerous state and local governments in the sale of general obligation bonds.

General obligation bonds are typically the most secure type of municipal bond usually enjoying the “full faith and credit” pledge of the issuer. Determining the capacity a government has the sell general obligation bonds can be difficult because in addition to financial and legal constraints, often the sale of these bonds is impacted by political constraints as they are often paid with the proceeds of property taxes.

Cabrera’s role is to assist our issuing clients by providing them the information they need to determine the size of a potential issue as well as the timing of the sale.

Whether in the role of senior manager, working closely with the issuer to structure the financing, manage the working group and direct the sales and marketing effort, or as a co-manager where we focus on procuring orders at the time of sale, Cabrera’s pubic finance team is motivated to provide superior service to our clients.

Revenue Credits

Revenue-generating credits such as municipal water or wastewater, power, transportation, etc., have become some of the most highly-rated municipal bonds due to their essential nature and their price inelasticity. Because revenue credits most often provide the investor with protections such as rate covenants and additional bonds tests, it is Cabrera’s job to calculate and work within the capacity constraints of the credit. This is done in conjunction with the issuer and their counsel.

Other types of revenue credits such as toll-roads and airports are generally not viewed as “essential” but nevertheless are critical to the efficient functioning of modern cities and states. Cabrera has had the privilege to serve as a senior manager and as a co-manager for numerous issuers of revenue bonds.

Education and Healthcare

Education, whether K-12, community colleges, universities or special education, is one of the largest sectors in the public finance space. Because of their importance in our society, the vast majority of education institutions receive the benefit of tax-exemption. Cabrera works with these institutions to structure the sale of tax-exempt bonds whose proceeds are used to build and maintain their critical facilities and infrastructure.

Institutions of higher learning have diverse business operations including student housing, parking, foodservice, athletic facilities and the financing of laboratories in conjunction with corporations. Cabrera has worked on numerous types of these financings.

The healthcare space has been rapidly growing in recent years and Cabrera has worked with numerous clients to assist them to grow organically as well as to plan and execute their acquisitions. It has been our privilege to work with some of the largest healthcare organizations in the United States.