Municipal Bond Expert Will Enhance Municipal Bond Firm’s Capabilities

SOUTHPORT, Conn. — Herbert J. Sims & Co., Inc. is pleased to announce the hiring of Richard Larkin as a Senior Vice President, to be its new Director of Credit Analysis. Dick’s first assignment is helping the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets review the current crisis of Bond Insurance in the $2 trillion taxexempt bond market, with his testimony at today’s hearing in Washington.

Prior to joining Sims, Dick worked at J.B. Hanauer, where he performed high-yield municipal bond analysis. Earlier in his career, Dick was a Managing Director in FitchRating’s public finance group and served as the Co-chairman of its Public Finance Criteria Committee. Dick was also a Managing Director and Chief Municipal Rating Officer at Standard & Poor’s, where he was responsible for municipal rating policies, practices, governance and criteria. Following a twenty-one year career at S&P, Dick served as a financial advisor to Fairmount Capital Advisors, where he developed credit enhancement programs for public pension funds. Later, he helped found Reliance SRL, a rating agency that performed local credit ratings in Uruguay. From 1995-1998, Dick served on the National Advisory Council on State & Local Budgeting (NACSLB). This industry task force, comprising representatives from the private sector and officials from all levels of local government, identified and fostered 60 of the best budgeting practices that have been implemented by our best-run state and local governments.

Dick has had hands-on rating experience in 42 states, at all levels of state and local government covering virtually every type of debt structure and security pledge. He has been a frequent speaker at state and national Government Finance Officers’ Association (GFOA) conferences, and has articles published in national media and public finance textbooks. He was also awarded the National Federation of Municipal Analysts’ annual career achievement award in 1996. Dick was also a finalist for the newly-created “user” position on the Governmental Accounting Standards Board (GASB) in 1997.

“We are delighted to have Dick’s substantial expertise and experience to serve our clients,” said Bill Sims, CEO for the Company. He will be responsible for the Company’s credit analyses of a wide range of investment opportunities.