For Janice Hofferber, new head of U.S. public finance at Moody’s Traders Service, a concentrate on fundamentals is essential to all of the company does.

“Our aim and our mission is admittedly this — to supply traders with the insightful analysis that can assist them make higher funding choices,” she advised The Bond Purchaser.

Hofferber, who has had a long time of expertise within the monetary service trade, began her new job on the primary of the 12 months, taking up from Michael Rowan who retired in mid-January.

In her new function, she oversees municipal bond scores and analysis for greater than 12,000 state and native governments, hospitals, greater training establishments, constitution colleges and different tax-exempt issuers.

Hofferber holds a LEAD Certificates from the Stanford College College of Enterprise, an MBA in finance from New York College, a B.A. in psychology from Rutgers College and is a chartered monetary analyst.

She brings a wealth of expertise to the job from different positions she has held over the previous 20 years. She has labored in funding banking, fastened earnings and fairness analytics.

“I have been on this enterprise for fairly a very long time — a number of a long time. I’ve spent my total profession overlaying company credit score and issuers,” Hofferber mentioned. “I began out of faculty as an funding banker at J.P. Morgan Chase and went via their company credit score coaching program, as many Moody’s analysts and alumni have executed earlier than me.”

She spent nearly 10 years at J.P. Morgan, the place she was a vp within the mergers and acquisitions and funding banking teams, specializing in media and shopper merchandise firms.

Hofferber mentioned she got here to Moody’s with a purpose to comply with her want to additional discover the analytical aspect of the enterprise.

“It is the world I actually love essentially the most,” she mentioned. “I had taken the CFA examination and was profitable and completed my MBA in finance and I joined Moody’s.”

She began at Moody’s as a senior analyst, the place she lined investment-grade meals and beverage issuers from 1995 to 1996.

Hofferber then served as a managing director at Fulcrum International Companions, an impartial fairness analysis boutique, and was a director of fairness analysis at Van der Moolen, the New York Inventory Alternate specialist agency.

She rejoined Moody’s in 2006 as lead analyst for the U.S. shopper merchandise and tobacco sectors and as a ranking committee chairperson for a number of trade sector groups, and has been on the agency ever since.

In 2013, Hofferber turned a managing director within the ranking company’s North America company finance group. There she has led analytical groups overlaying over 500 investment-grade and high-yield issuers in the true property, shopper, retail, gaming, lodging, attire and restaurant sectors.

Hofferber is an energetic supporter of the company’s variety, fairness and inclusion efforts. She is co-chairperson of the coverage and recruiting committee for the agency’s Veteran’s Enterprise Useful resource Group. She can also be an envoy for Scores & Analysis Assist, which goals to enhance recruitment and coaching for the company’s youthful credit score analysts.

Wanting forward, she mentioned, she is going to concentrate on preserving Moody’s requirements excessive and can stay centered on the basics for each the purchase and promote sides.

“We have now a really lengthy custom of analytic rigor and excellence,” she mentioned. “And we’ve a really robust dedication to issuer and investor transparency.”

Hofferber mentioned she was lucky to have a proficient workforce behind her.

“We have now over 160 credit score analysts and managers, situated everywhere in the nation,” she mentioned. “They’re really specialists of their fields. So I am actually proud that I am going to have the ability to lead them and comply with within the footsteps of so many actually nice managers which have preceded me.”

She mentioned the main focus would stay on offering essentially the most correct, forward-looking, considerate opinions on the over 15,000 scores that Moody’s screens on daily basis.

Hofferber mentioned Moody’s was anticipating continued refinancing exercise in 2023, together with some new cash wants for spending on infrastructure initiatives.

“It’ll once more be one other attention-grabbing 12 months for public finance, however we’ll be right here to serve the market as market situations change and meet the calls for of our prospects,” she mentioned.

Hofferber lives in New Jersey together with her husband and has twin daughters.