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Morgan Keegan

"What The Hell Are Alabama Residents Doing Trading Swaptions?" Just Ask Tennessee...

Moe Tkacik | April 8, 2009, 12:24PM

A day after the credit rating agency Moody's issued an unprecedented blanket negative outlook report on the debt of all American cities and towns, a fascinating New York Times story today further illuminates the process by which so many small municipalities signed on to risky derivative securities contracts that exploded on them last year, in some cases quadrupling their interest payments.

The story focuses on Tennessee and the Memphis-based investment bank Morgan Keegan, which recently celebrated its rise to top underwriter status in the state and the south central U.S., managing a whopping 39% of Tennessee bond issuances last year.

Tennessee is one of few states with laws requiring public officials charged with approving derivatives deals to attend "swap school" to learn about the risks and complexities of the contracts. The state comptroller says he asked business professors to write the swap school textbooks, but when they declined the task was left to...Morgan Keegan, which had also been retained as an adviser to many of the state's towns.

In many corners of Tennessee, the first anyone heard of interest-rate swaps was from C. L. Overman, a vice president of Morgan Keegan who assured officials that the deals carried little risk, city and county officials said.

"He told us it would be a good thing and there wasn't much downside," said Mayor Duncan of Claiborne County.

Then a few months ago, according to the Times, Overman called to tell county officials they had a few weeks to refinance an $18 million bond or pay a quadrupled quarterly payment of $700,000. Perhaps unsurprisingly, Morgan's swap school curriculum understated such risks, and the Times has the textbook to prove it. The big risk factor they missed? It's a familiar one: