Vice President Dick Cheney likes them. So, too, does Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld.
Now comes word that another prominent investor has a big stake in municipal bonds: Jack Welch, the former chairman of General Electric Co.
According to court papers cited by The Wall Street Journal, Welch’s single biggest investment is $117 million in tax-free municipal bonds.
Though a chunk of his assets is also devoted to riskier tech stocks and private-equity investments, municipal bonds make sense for Welch, the newspaper said. They offer him safety, stability and, of course, tax advantages.
As we previously noted, Cheney and Rumsfeld also have big appetites for bonds, investing at least $15 million and $11 million, respectively.
Clearly, these famous Americans are in step with millions of ordinary investors, who poured more than $17 billion into bonds during the first eight months of this year – the largest inflow in nine years and a 38% increase from last year, the newspaper reported.
