Drysdale of PNC Securities, Peters of Boatmen's to lead MSRB in fiscal 1995.

WASHINGTON -- The Municipal Securities Rulemaking Board has elected two bank dealer executives to head the panel in fiscal year 1995, the board said Friday.

Robert H. Drysdale, president and chief executive officer of PNC Securities Corp. in Pittsburgh, will chair the board beginning Oct. 1, and Phillip E. Peters, executive vice president and chief investment officer of Boatmen's Bancshares Inc. in St. Louis, will serve as vice chairman.

Drysdale, who has been on the board for two years, will succeed David C. Clapp, a partner and head of municipal securities at Goldman, Sachs & Co., who became chairman at a time of unprecedented new federal regulation of the municipal market. Clapp, who will complete two years on the board as of Sept. 30, will continue as a panel member for another year.

Peters, who is also beginning his third year on the board, replaces Gregory C. Menne, director of fixed-income management for A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. in St. Louis., who completes his three-year term at the end of the month.

Before joining PNC Securities in 1988, Drysdale was president and chief executive officer of Jesup & Lamont Securities Group Inc. in New York City. He also was president and chief operating officer of Tucker Anthony & R.L. Day Inc., and was with Blyth Eastman Dillon and Security Pacific National Bank in Los Angeles.

Peters joined Boatmen's after serving as principal with Carolina Securities Corp., a Raleigh, N.C.-based member of the New York Stock Exchange. He was responsible for Carolina's fixed-income underwriting, trading, and institutional sales activities. He also was associated with Mellon Bank, Pittsburgh and Citizens & Southern Corp., Atlanta.

The rulemaking board consists of 15 members, with five each representing securities firms, bank dealers, and the public. At least one public member must be an issuer and another must be an investor. Five members are elected on a rotating basis each year and board members serve a total of three years.

Drysdale and Peters take the helm as the Securities and Exchange Commission is preparing to vote later this year on whether to implement a series of controversial and broad rules that are designed to improve primary and secondary market disclosure. They would require dealers to disclose to customers on confirmations the markups on riskless principal transactions and whether a bond is unrated.

Over the next year, the board will implement revisions to and monitor compliance with its controversial political contributions rule, G-37. Comments are due Sept. 21 on a second round of amendments to the rule that were proposed by the MSRB Aug. 19.

The amendments include provisions that would exempt securities firms' retail sales staffs from the rule and narrow the number of supervisors of municipal finance professionals that are covered. A federal Appeals Court is scheduled to hear oral arguments in early December in Alabama bond dealer William Blount's constitutional challenge to Rule G-37.

Comments are due Thursday on draft proposals announced by the board on June 14 that are designed to strengthen the disclosure of call provisions and other key information that appears on municipal bond confirmations. The board also requested extensive comment on whether it should require dealers to beef up the information on confirmations, including, for example, if dealers should provide customers with summaries of bond features and copies of preliminary official statements.

The MSRB is expected to launch a pilot program in January that would supply daily volume and prices for frequently traded municipal bonds. Comments were due Aug. 25 on a rule proposed by the MSRB that would lay the groundwork for the upcoming pilot, which comes in the wake of increasing SEC pressure on the municipal market to improve price dissemination.

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