Overview

To provide clients with optimum bond sale execution, KND confines its trading activities to the sale of and market making in its own negotiated offerings, thereby limiting the distractions and risk of low-margin competitive bidding and broad market secondary trading. Market-making in its own offerings also enhances clients’ market recognition while ensuring successful execution of future primary offerings.

Institutional Sales & Trading:

The trading desk includes in its call list all of the major bond funds, many casualty insurance companies and several investment counselors. The firm specializes in institutional sales and maintains account relationships with many large institutional investors, including Franklin, Nuveen, Putnam and Van Kampen funds.

Retail Sales & Trading

In-House Accounts – The KND Sales & Trading team sells municipal bonds directly to retail investor accounts originated and maintained in-house as a means of providing broader market depth for maximum sales execution.

Retail Broker-Dealers - KND also benefits from the infrastructure and distribution capacity of the industry’s largest retail securities firms whose combined sales forces measure in the thousands. Sales concessions are negotiated by KND and paid from underwriter compensation.

The Set-Up

First Southwest Company acts as KND’s clearing agent, allowing the firm a $30 million uncommitted capital level. All sales and trading activities are executed from the corporate headquarters in Solana Beach, California.

Remarketing activities directly performed from the KND trading desk include yearly remarketings on mandatory put bonds and coupon resets on monthly floaters. Remarketing activities such as 7-day floaters requiring put facilities are performed on contract with GATES Capital.