US Municipal Markets

Municipal underwriting

We provide innovative, client-centric underwriting solutions across diverse sectors including not-for-profit healthcare, higher education, single family and multifamily housing, K-12 education, public utilities, transportation, and student loans. We are a leading Negotiated Underwriter, recently capturing back-to-back top-3 annual rankings, with a 10%+ annual market share and over 300 lead or sole managed deals annually, which is nearly double the number of senior managed transactions of most of our closest competitors.¹

Municipals strategies

Our Municipals Strategy Team stands at the forefront of municipal market analysis, equipping investors with insights into the key drivers shaping the US municipal bond landscape. We deliver rigorous analysis of state and local credit quality, regional economic conditions, and tax and legislative developments to identify the macro factors that influence municipal bond valuations and investment opportunities. Our sector expertise is unparalleled, spanning the diverse spectrum of revenue-backed municipal issuers. Our research extends to high-yield municipal credits, where we identify value opportunities and credit dislocations among stressed issuers and special situations. We leverage our high-yield market intelligence and market relationships to deliver differentiated insights.

Sales and trading – leading market making and distribution

RBC Capital Markets is a dominant force in municipal secondary markets, operating as a leading market maker with one of the broadest distribution networks in the industry. Our sales and trading teams combine deep market expertise with sophisticated technology to provide institutional and retail clients with exceptional liquidity and trusted execution. Our balance sheet strength allows us to serve as a reliable counterparty and critical source of market access for our customers, enabling them to efficiently manage portfolios, execute trades at scale, and navigate dynamic market conditions.

Through our strategic partnership with RBC Wealth Management, we provide comprehensive retail distribution capabilities servicing 1 million+ retail accounts representing over $750 billion in assets through 5 Regional Wealth Management Trading desks located NJ, FL, MD, TX & CA servicing ~200 branch offices (including satellites) throughout the country.²

Electronic trading capabilities

RBC is a market leader in municipal e-trading, powered by substantial investments in our in-house e-trading platform, Elevate, which provides best-in-class technology and algorithmic trading capabilities to our team and clients. Elevate drives systematic trading through multiple electronic channels, supports our proprietary odd-lot trading algorithm and provides bespoke technology solutions for clients. Through these efforts, we've continued to achieve strong growth in trading volumes and customer engagement. Our ETF trading has similarly expanded with robust growth in creation, redemption, and block trading activity. We pioneered ETF exchange algorithmic trading and continue to build dedicated ETF and portfolio trading pods within our technology teams to maintain a competitive edge.

Retail capabilities

Through our strategic partnership with RBC Wealth Management, we provide comprehensive retail distribution capabilities servicing one million+ retail accounts representing over $750 billion in assets under management.² Our heritage as a regionally-based broker-dealer enables us to access boutique and mid-size distribution networks in addition to traditional institutional channels.

Finance and derivative solutions

We provide comprehensive financing and derivative solutions tailored to municipal market needs, including prepaid energy structures, portfolio migration services, high-yield and special situation trading capabilities, and innovative financing mechanisms. Our finance solutions extend to private credit offerings, leveraging our deep high-yield customer franchise and broad banking relationships. We offer swaps, options and rate lock products that allow clients to efficiently hedge interest rate risk, and we continue to expand our derivative capabilities to serve the evolving needs of municipal issuers and investors. Our specialized products include gas supply revenue bonds, renewable energy supply revenue bonds, MMD rate locks, SIFMA basis swaps, callable SIFMA swaps, and callable SOFR swaps, among other innovative financing mechanisms designed to optimize cost of capital for public sector clients.

Our commitment

We work with clients to transform their capital market needs into successful municipal bond offerings and sophisticated trading solutions, providing comprehensive underwriting, sales, trading, and derivative capabilities that serve both the issuer and investor sides of the municipal market. Our combination of proven leadership, innovative thinking, market expertise, and a deep distribution platform makes us the partner of choice for navigating today's municipal markets.