Emory Dawson
Senior Vice President and Municipal Credit Strategist
emory.dawson@ricefin.com

Veteran credit analyst Emory Dawson joined Rice Financial as a Senior Vice President and Municipal Credit Strategist in 2010.  Mr. Dawson has 30 years of experience in municipal credit analysis, most recently with HRF Associates, a New Jersey based financial services consulting firm.  In a previous position, he was Director of Municipal Underwriting at American Capital Access (ACA).

Mr. Dawson began his career at Moody’s Investors Service, serving as a Review Analyst for seven years.  In this role, he supervised the review and analysis of and assigned credit ratings to transactions for all types of major issuers, including major airports, public power agencies and large water and sewer issuers.  Later positions included Director of Municipal Research at Marine Midland Bank (four years), Managing Director at Union Bank of Switzerland (8 years), Director of Municipal Underwriting at American Capital Access (10 years) and Senior Vice President at HRF Associates (one year). 

At ACA, he syndicated and reinsured virtually all transactions underwritten at the company over a 10-year span, including transportation facilities, ports and airports, private colleges and universities, private K-12 schools, sports facilities, bio-mass and thermal energy facilities, and health care facilities, among others.  He marketed credit enhancement products, sourced high yield transactions worthy of credit enhancement, and credit underwrote and managed the documentation and booking of high yield transactions for the company’s portfolio of municipal, project finance, and not-for-profit taxable and tax-exempt securities.  Over the course of his career at ACA, he sourced 33% of the company’s $7 billion book of high yield municipal and project finance business and was responsible for 30% of the company’s total booked premium ($400 million).  He also created and executed reinsurance agreements meeting state insurance and rating agency guidelines for the syndication of all exposure above ACA’s single risk limit. 

At HRF Associates, Mr. Dawson co-authored a proposal and presentation to U.S. Treasury officials for the development and funding of a municipally-owned mutual insurance company to address the credit enhancement needs of municipal issuers following the collapse of previously active bond insurers that collectively accounted for close to 84% of available insurance underwriting capacity. 

Mr. Dawson received a bachelor of arts degree in political science from Morehouse College and a master’s degree in regional planning from Syracuse University.

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