Smith’s High Yield Municipal Bond Conference Puts Spaceports, Distressed Credits and New Infrastructure in Spotlight

Municipal Market Leaders Gather in Greenwich

GREENWICH, CT, UNITED STATES, October 7, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ — Leading municipal bond investors will join other market professionals for an in-depth look at risk and opportunity across the high yield sector, ranging from distressed credits and artificial intelligence to spaceports and the next generation of American infrastructure financing, at the 23rd annual Smith’s High Yield Municipal Bond Conference, October 19–21 at the Hyatt Regency Greenwich.

Smith’s Research & Gradings, a leading independent municipal credit research firm, provides award-winning research to the municipal and infrastructure finance markets. Smith’s grades all of America’s infrastructure as a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 50-member Committee on America’s Infrastructure, which publishes the ASCE Infrastructure Report Card. Smith’s Research examines states and local municipalities to assess the essentiality of their assets and the strength of their ownership. Smith’s proprietary data connects the dots over the past three decades between event risks and expected recoveries based on expert engineering, cyber and system-level surveillance to identify risks that financial analysis does not. Smith’s provides stakeholders with an independent assessment based on a proven framework for understanding how an asset may perform over time. This allows decision makers and policymakers to make more informed decisions about how to engineer better outcomes given potential losses from pre-determined events.

“High yield municipal finance has always been where innovation meets risk,” said Terence Smith, CEO of Smith’s Research & Gradings. “Investors need to understand where the risks are, but they also need to recognize where the municipal market can finance the infrastructure and industries of tomorrow. We’re focusing on the issues that will matter to investors for years to come.”

The conference will examine distressed and bankrupt municipal credits in traditional sectors: charter schools, healthcare, tobacco bonds, Puerto Rico, higher education, senior living, and infrastructure funding.

Among the conference’s forward-looking sessions is “Spaceports: The Next Frontier in Municipal Finance.” Panelists will discuss the emergence of commercial space infrastructure as a potential new sector of the municipal market, including the use of newly authorized tax-exempt private activity bonds for launch facilities, mission-control centers, manufacturing campuses, testing facilities and related infrastructure.

On October 20, the 2026 Smith’s Phoenix Award will be presented to Miyoko Sato of Mintz. The award recognizes individuals whose leadership, professional achievements, and contributions have made a lasting impact on the high yield municipal bond sector.

“The municipal market has an extraordinary capacity to finance things America needs,” Smith said. “But capital has to be deployed intelligently. That means asking difficult questions, challenging assumptions and understanding both the credit and the structure.”

The full agenda and registration are available at the conference website.

Conference sponsors include BofA Securities, RBC Capital Markets, Faegre Drinker, GLC Advisors, McDermott Will & Schulte, Mintz, Computershare, Nixon Peabody, DSI Consulting, Moody’s, Fitch Ratings, D.A. Davidson, S&P Global, Mesirow, HilltopSecurities, and Celadon.

About Smith’s Research & Gradings
Founded in 1992, Smith’s Research & Gradings provides independent research, credit analytics and market intelligence to institutional investors and other participants in the municipal and infrastructure finance markets. Learn more at smithsresearch.net

Media Contact
Members of the press interested in arranging interviews with speakers should contact Pamela Kilbourn, Managing Director, Smith’s Research & Gradings, at (571) 299-4954 or pamkilbourn@smithsresearch.net.

Pamela Kilbourn
Smith’s Research & Gradings
571-299-4954
pamkilbourn@smithsresearch.net
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