Kategoriarkiv: Aktuellt

The advisors (Aidan Brady, Lars M Andersson and Francis Breedon) delivered their report last week. The Local Government Association (LGA) has then, last Thursday, decided to move forward with its plans to create a Municipal Bond Agency. In an interview with Room 151, Sir Merrick Cockell, chairman of LGA, said: ”The huge potential for reducing local government’s borrowing bill by introducing diversity and a council-owned competitor into our lending market is too big to ignore.”

Lars M Andersson has been appointed to be a member of the Supervisory Board of Agence France Locale – Société Opérationnelle. He is also the chairman of the Strategy Committee within the Board.

The English LGA has appointed advisors for the con-tinuation of their project to create a Municipal Bond Agency.  Aidan Brady is the lead advisor. He has many years experience of senior executive positions in banks, including Deutsche Bank.

Lars M Andersson and Professor Francis Breedon, professor of economics and finance at Queen Mary University of London will act as strategic advisors.

Read the press release here

Read article in Public Finance here

After coming back from Paris

and some very interesting meetings,

I wish you all A Happy New Year

– Lars

Municipal Journal have in an article, written by Jonathan Werran, reported about the LGA’s decision to continue to develop a British bond agency. In relation to this, Lars M Andersson was interviewed. Read the article here.

The English Local Government Association issued a press release last Friday, where the following is written:

”The cross-party executive of the Local Government Association, which represents councils in England and Wales, has voted unanimously in favour of pursuing the plan following 18 councils making formal expressions of interest in the creation of a Municipal Bonds Agency to rival those already in operation in Denmark, Sweden, Norway, the Netherlands and France.”

The local authorities that have stated their commitment to work with the LGA to develop the agency, are presented in the press release. They are:

• Birmingham City Council
• Cambridgeshire County Council
• Cheshire West and Chester Council
• City of London Corporation
• East Dunbartonshire Council
• Ipswich Borough Council
• Lancashire County Council
• London Borough of Lewisham
• London Borough of Southwark
• London Borough of Sutton
• London Borough of Richmond upon Thames
• Newcastle City Council
• Rochford District Council
• Stevenage Borough Council
• South Cambridgeshire District Council
• Warrington Borough Council
• Westminster City Council
• Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Read the press release here.

Municipal Journal has published an article, written by Lars M Andersson, about the role of local government funding agencies and how they support local authorities in their infrastructure investment activities, so urgently needed to achieve growth. Beside this article, Sir Merrick Cockell, chairman of the LGA, has written a piece about the efforts in Britain to create an agency, with the headline ”A commercial breakthrough?”.

Read the first part of the article here

Read the second part of the article and Sir Merrick Cockell’s article  here.

Public Finance International has published an article on their website about the creation of Agence France Locale. Read the article here.

A couple of days ago, on the 22nd of October, the Agence France Locale was created during a meeting in Paris. These are the  11 founding members of the agency:

Region Pays-de-la-Loire
Département d’Aisne
Département d’Essonne
Département de Savoie
Communautés Urbaines de Lille
Communautés Urbaines de Lyon
Communautés Urbaines de Valenciennes
Communautés Urbaines de Vallée-de-la-Marne
Ville de Bordeaux
Ville de Grenoble
Ville de Lons-le-Saunier

Among the representatives of the founding members were Jacques Pélissard, Chairman of the Mayors Association, Gérard Collomb, Chairman of Grand Lyon, Michel Destot, Mayor of Grenoble, Alain Juppe, Mayor of Bordeaux and ex-Prime Minister.

An important group of French politicians and and high ranking civil servants joined for a lunch to celebrate the creation of Agence France Locale. Among the guest were Anne-Marie Escoffier, Deputy Minister for local government, Philip Yvin, advisor to the Prime Minister. Furthermore, a group of foreign guest were present: Gunnar Lund, Swedish Ambassador to France, Daniel Goodwin, Executive Director of the English Local Government Association, Alf Egnerfors, Vice-president of the Board of Kommuninvest Cooperative Society, Pekka Averio, CEO of Munifin and Henning Schoppmann, General Secretary of European Association of Public Banks.

Ron Walkier, CEO of Nederlandse Waterschapsbank  (NWB), sent the following message: ”wish the newly born a successful and prosperous future”.

Craig Stobo, President of the Board of New Zealand LGFA, sent the following message: ” the NZ Local Government Funding Agency warmly welcomes Agence France Locale to the funding agency ”club”, acknowledges the hard work that you have done to get here, and wishes it every prosperity.”

At the press conference,  Marylise Lebranchu, Minister for Local Government, joined and gave the Governments support for the new agency. I was also asked to make some remarks (which can be read here) to the members of the press.