Bond Buyer
U.S. financial trade press, nonpartisan
Background
The Bond Buyer was founded in 1891 in New York City by William F.G. Shanks, a Civil War-era journalist, under the name 'The Daily Bond Buyer.' It quickly became the dominant trade paper for the U.S. municipal bond market and is sometimes called the 'Bible of the Municipal Bond Industry.' The Otis family of Boston acquired it around 1910 and held it for decades. In 1983, it was sold to International Thomson, the Canadian media conglomerate. Thomson sold it in 2004 to Investcorp, which operated it under its SourceMedia division alongside American Banker and other financial trade titles. In 2014, Observer Capital — the private equity firm of Joseph Meyer, former publisher of The New York Observer — acquired SourceMedia from Investcorp. SourceMedia rebranded as Arizent in 2019, and Bond Buyer transitioned from a print daily to a subscription-based digital platform. The publication remains the leading specialized outlet for municipal finance news in the United States, reaching roughly 40,000 professionals. Its editorial focus is narrow and technical: it reports on bond issuance, interest rates, regulatory changes, and federal policy as they affect the muni market, rather than broad political commentary.
Sources
- The Bond Buyer – Wikipedia
- The Bond Buyer: From History to Digital Evolution – SuperMoney
- Arizent – Wikipedia
- SourceMedia Relaunches As Arizent – MediaPost
- Joseph Meyer's Observer Capital Buys SourceMedia – Bond Buyer
- Exclusive research: Tax exemption woes persist in 2026 – Bond Buyer
- Cloudy outlook for 2026 legislation and tax policy – Bond Buyer
Profile compiled 2026-08-29; refreshed when ownership, funding, or the administration changes.