Business Commons^™

Lessons Learned: Brian Stoker, Steven H. Kasoff, Matthew A. Lieber

Journal of Financial Crises

Brian Stoker served in Merrill Lynch’s structured credit division for seven years, producing and trading asset-backed securities (ABS). In 2005, Stoker moved to Citigroup as a director of ABS CDO (collateralized debt obligation) and CLO (collateralized loan obligation) structuring. After the financial crisis, Stoker was an analyst at Carlson Capital for three years. In 2011, he joined StormHarbour Securities, serving as a managing director until 2018. From 2019 to 2021, he was director of securitization at Korth Direct Mortgage. Presently, Stoker is a licensed real estate agent in Miami. This Lessons Learned summary is based on an interview with Stoker.

Lessons Learned: Eric Kolchinsky, Steven H. Kasoff, Matthew A. Lieber

Journal of Financial Crises

Eric Kolchinsky served as managing director of ratings for ABS CDOs (asset-backed security collateralized debt obligations) at Moody’s Investor Services from 2005 to 2007. Kolchinsky started his career in structured finance with stints at Goldman Sachs and Merrill Lynch. He joined Moody’s in 2000 as vice president for credit. In 2007, after Kolchinsky raised questions concerning the ratings of new deals in light of subprime downgrades, Moody’s removed him from his client-facing position. Kolchinsky supervised methodology for structured finance valuations at Moody’s Analytics for two years, before Moody’s suspended him altogether in 2009. Separated from Moody’s, Kolchinsky testified before Congress …

Lessons Learned: Chris Ricciardi, Matthew A. Lieber, Steven H. Kasoff

Journal of Financial Crises

Chris Ricciardi was a CDO pioneer who built the structured products units at CS First Boston and Merrill Lynch before moving to the asset management side. Ricciardi began his career structuring novel fixed-income securities at Prudential. At CS First Boston and Merrill, he catapulted each investment bank’s lagging unit into the top of the league tables for CDO (collateralized debt obligation) issuance. He was CEO of Cohen & Co. from 2006 to 2011, when he left to co-found investment management firm Mead Park Management. A graduate of the University of Richmond with an MBA from the Wharton School of the …

Lessons Learned: Sohail Khan, Matthew A. Lieber, Steven H. Kasoff

Journal of Financial Crises

Sohail Khan was managing director of fixed-income sales at Citigroup from 2005–09. Khan started his finance career in 1996, after completing his MBA at Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Khan gained broad experience in product structuring and sales of credit derivatives at Citigroup. As managing director during the subprime securitization boom and bust, he was involved with institutional sales of asset-backed securities (ABS) including collateralized debt obligations (CDOs); his clients were hedge funds, structured vehicles, and institutional buyers. In 2009, Khan left Citigroup to co-found StormHarbour Securities, a boutique investment bank he has headed since as managing principal. This …

Lessons Learned: Stephen King, Matthew A. Lieber, Steven H. Kasoff

Journal of Financial Crises

Stephen King started his career in finance at Bankers Trust in 1997 as a computer scientist with a business degree. He worked on structured credit transactions when credit derivatives were just being invented. In 2005, King joined Barclays’ structured credit group, where he managed a CDO (collateralized debt obligation) correlation desk that was different from standard dealer CDO units. In 2009, he launched C12 Capital Management to relieve Barclays of distressed subprime positions. Presently, King finances and builds luxury hotels as founder and CEO of Sardis Developments. This Lessons Learned summary is based on an interview with King.

Lessons Learned: Steven H. Kasoff, Matthew A. Lieber

Journal of Financial Crises

Steve Kasoff was employed at Elliott Management Corporation from 2003 until 2020. His responsibilities centered on developing the structured products and real estate groups at Elliott. He was made senior portfolio manager, a member of the firm’s management committee, and equity partner. Kasoff has extensive experience in the origination, trading, and management of structured products such as collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) and mortgage-backed securities, including earlier posts at Deutsche Bank, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers. He earned his BA in economics from Yale College and his MBA in finance from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. In 2016, …

Lessons Learned: James Finkel, Steven H. Kasoff, Matthew A. Lieber

Journal of Financial Crises

A Wall Street veteran specializing in structured credit transactions, Jim Finkel was co-founder and director of the structured credit asset management firm Dynamic Credit Partners (DCP) from 2003 to 2009. Finkel started his career as a securities lawyer for the international law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP, before moving over to the banking side in 1992. He specialized in mortgage-backed securities and collateralized loan obligations (CLOs) for several firms, including Bear Stearns and Deutsche Bank, where he headed the London-based CLO group. In 2003, Finkel returned to New York to launch and run DCP. In 2010, he joined financial …

A Special Project: Inside The Cdo Machine, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

In this issue of the Journal of Financial Crisis, we feature Inside the CDO Machine—a special undertaking recently completed under the auspices of the Yale Program on Financial Stability Lessons Learned Oral History Project by Steven H. Kasoff, a Yale School of Management Fellow and former equity partner and head of real estate and structured products investments at the Elliott Management Corp., a global hedge fund. For the project, Kasoff undertook a series of interviews with industry professionals to focus on one of the critical derivatives products of the Global Financial Crisis (GFC), collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), and how they …

Anatomy Of A Trade: The Making Of A Subprime Cdo, Steven H. Kasoff

Journal of Financial Crises

This article presents a short story, a sketch in eight parts of a single fictitious subprime collateralized debt obligation (CDO) transaction. The story is informed by expert interviews, documentary research, and the author’s firsthand experience.

Wall Street’S Subprime Debacle: Firsthand Accounts From Inside The Cdo Machine, Matthew A. Lieber, Steven H. Kasoff

Journal of Financial Crises

The observations, perceptions, and actions of participants in the subprime markets remain poorly documented and incompletely understood. Seeking to deepen our understanding, this study has produced seven interview summaries and one article telling the story of a hypothetical CDO deal. This article is organized in four parts. First, it presents our research questions and methods in relation to the existing knowledge on the topic. Second, it describes what we think are the study’s main contributions. Third, it previews the Lessons Learned summaries and interviews from each of the participants. And last, it identifies what we believe are some of the …

The Rescue Of The Us Auto Industry, Module G: The Auto Warranty Commitment Program, Benjamin Henken

Journal of Financial Crises

On March 30, 2009, President Barack Obama announced a plan for government-funded protection of warranties on new vehicles sold by General Motors (GM) and Chrysler while the companies underwent restructuring. The initiative, which would become known as the Auto Warranty Commitment Program (AWCP), was intended to bolster consumer confidence by alleviating a major risk—the loss of warranty benefits—to consumers associated with the companies’ potential bankruptcies. Under the AWCP, GM and Chrysler established independent special purpose vehicles (SPVs) to which they transferred a combination of their own money along with funding they received from Treasury in the form of a loan. …

The Rescue Of The Us Auto Industry, Module Z:Overview, Rosalind Z. Wiggins, Greg Feldberg, Alexander Nye, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

In the fall of 2008, credit markets tightened amid a broader economic downturn that severely impacted the US auto industry, especially the three largest domestic manufacturers, General Motors (GM), Ford Motors, and Chrysler. The companies requested assistance from the government in a bid to stay afloat, but Congress declined to authorize funding. The Bush administration, however, provided bridge loans to GM and Chrysler under the Auto Industry Finance Program (AIFP), funded through the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), to sustain them until the Obama administration was in place. Within months, the Obama administration decided that a speedy bankruptcy would be …

The Rescue Of The Us Auto Industry, Module E: Emergency Assistance For Chrysler Financial, Alexander Nye

Journal of Financial Crises

In the fall of 2008, due to the confluence of the Global Financial Crisis and years of structural decline in the auto industry, Chrysler was nearing bankruptcy. Chrysler’s related finance company, Chrysler Financial, was also in dire straits. On December 19, 2008, President Bush announced the Automotive Industry Financing Program and that the US Treasury would extend Chrysler a $4 billion Bridge Loan to give the company time to prepare a viable restructuring plan. Two weeks later, the Treasury arranged $1.5 billion in low-interest financing for Chrysler Financial to fund the securitization of new consumer car loans and the facility …

The Rescue Of The Us Auto Industry, Module F: Auto Supplier Support Program, Riki Matsumoto

Journal of Financial Crises

The Global Financial Crisis that began in 2007 intensified the decade-long malaise of two of the largest auto manufacturers in the US, General Motors and Chrysler. Their possible collapse was deemed to pose a systemic risk by the United States government. In response, the Department of the Treasury made efforts to provide support to the automotive industry through the Automotive Industry Financing Program (AIFP). As US auto parts suppliers experienced deteriorated automotive markets, disrupted manufacturer operations, and stressed credit markets, the Treasury announced the Auto Supplier Support Program (ASSP) on March 19, 2009, as an auxiliary program to the overall …

The Rescue Of The Us Auto Industry, Module C: Restructuring Chrysler Through Bankruptcy, Alexander Nye

Journal of Financial Crises

In late 2008, due to the confluence of the financial crisis and years of structural decline in the auto industry, Chrysler was nearing bankruptcy. The US Treasury provided Chrysler’s owner, Chrysler Holding, with a $4 billion bridge loan and Chrysler’s related finance company, Chrysler Financial, with a $1.5 billion financing program under the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP). The government-led restructuring through bankruptcy involved the commitment of roughly $5 billion in debtor-in-possession (DIP) loans from the US Treasury and the Canadian government, under which the US Treasury ultimately lent $1.89 billion, using TARP funds, and Canada lent about $1 billion, …

The Rescue Of The Us Auto Industry, Module D: Emergency Assistance To Ally Financial (Formerly Gmac), Riki Matsumoto, Kaleb B. Nygaard

Journal of Financial Crises

In 2008, GMAC was a $200 billion company providing financing to General Motors customers. As the Global Financial Crisis entered a critical stage in early 2008, GMAC’s funding strategy and liquidity position were adversely affected by the significant disruption in credit markets and the broader economic downturn. This reduced access to financing, which impacted GMAC’s ability to provide automotive wholesale inventory and retail financing to General Motors and Chrysler. In late 2008 and early 2009 GM and Chrysler underwent a complex restructuring process. To restore liquidity to GMAC’s auto finance business, the Federal Reserve agreed to expedite GMAC’s conversion to …

The Rescue Of The Us Auto Industry, Module A: Automotive Bridge Loans, Alexander Nye

Journal of Financial Crises

In 2008, in the midst of the Global Financial Crisis, America’s Big Three automakers neared their breaking point. Two of them, General Motors (GM) and Chrysler, asked Congress for funding to prevent uncontrolled bankruptcies. Policymakers realized these uncontrolled bankruptcies would damage the manufacturing sector. Congress considered but failed to pass a framework conditioning short-term financing on the companies’ producing acceptable restructuring plans. With the companies warning that they could not survive the coming presidential transition, on December 19, 2008, President George W. Bush announced the Automotive Industry Financing Program (AIFP) under the authority of the Emergency Economic Stability Act (EESA) …

The Rescue Of The Us Auto Industry, Module B: Restructuring General Motors Through Bankruptcy, Kaleb B. Nygaard

Journal of Financial Crises

As the Global Financial Crisis worsened in 2008, credit markets tightened and a broader economic downturn developed, hitting the auto industry particularly hard. The crisis intensified a decade-long decline of the largest US auto manufacturers. Because of its size and importance to the economy, the US government decided to provide assistance to General Motors (GM) to sustain it while it developed plans for its long-term viability. Congress declined to authorize funding for the auto manufacturers, but in December 2008, Treasury provided a bridge loan to GM under the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP) to sustain the company until the Obama …

Broad-Based Capital Injection Programs, June Rhee, Junko Oguri, Greg Feldberg, Andrew Metrick

Journal of Financial Crises

This paper surveys 36 broad-based capital injection (BBCI) programs and attempts to identify some best (and worst) practices. We argue that it is crucial to distinguish between programs implemented during acute (“panic”) and chronic (“debt overhang”) phases of a crisis, where the goals of program design should be different. In an acute phase, programs should be designed to influence the behavior of bank counterparties, while in chronic phases, the focus should be on bank behavior itself. With this framing, we identify seven themes to guide program design, and provide many illustrative examples for the policymaker’s tool kit.

Comparative Book Review: “Leading Through A Pandemic” And “Work Smart Now”, Ghenwa Mahmoud Al Hakim

Arab Economic and Business Journal

This article provides comparative review of two books “Leading Through a Pandemic: The Inside Story of Humanity, Innovation, and Lessons Learned During the COVID-19 Crisis” and “WORK SMART NOW How to jump start productivity, empower employees and achieve more” written by professional authors in the field of leadership and successful management practices. These books were chosen for being highly effective in contributing added value knowledge to the literature of leadership practices, whether in the context of crises or normal conditions. The review was commenced with description of the chapters of the books and clarifying its infringements to the readers …

Transforming Creativity Skills Into Creative Habits, Bethlem Clavijo Boronat, Halim Choueiry

Arab Economic and Business Journal

In a constantly changing and uncertain word, the creative capability is a key skill, not only for professional and personal success, but for survival. Educational systems have traditionally treated creativity as a marginal component of educational programs and, when it has been taught, it has been done in the focus of tools and techniques more than on building a solid creative base for students. This paper analyses the situation of the present-day creativity teaching in Higher Education and determines the key capabilities that allow the students to build a solid creative personality. After that, the paper offers a range of …

Lesson-Drawing And Policy Diffusion Of Gcc Countries In The Development Of Renewable Energies: The Case Of The Kingdom Of Bahrain, Vivien Exartier

Arab Economic and Business Journal

The Gulf region is a booming economic region whose fast development depends very much on its natural energy resources. However, the accelerating pace of regional development and mega-projects also meant using more power generation and energy availability. Gas consumption in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, and the UAE surged by 50% between 2002 and 2008. GCC states occupy the top global rankings in carbon dioxide emissions per capita.

The comparative study of public policy is concerned with how different governments respond to a common problem. Comparisons can be made in terms of programs, resources, or outcomes. The paper compares how GCC …

Building Climate Resilience In Indian Farm Households: An Analysis Of National And State Policies And Initiatives, A. Suresh, P. K. Viswanathan

Arab Economic and Business Journal

Over the years, the wrath of the nature in the form of adverse changes in the climate is borne by the agriculture sector all over the world, threatening the global food security. Indian agriculture is highly vulnerable to climatic extremes as agriculture forms the mainstay of the rural population. With increasing adverse effects caused by the climatic extremes, India has also embarked on various initiatives towards making its agriculture sector resilient to the vagaries of nature. In this regard, this paper reviews the studies related to climate change and its impact on Indian agriculture followed by the climate resilient agriculture …

Blockchain Technology For Reshaping Stock Exchanges: A Qualitative Exploratory Study In Palestine, Asia Aburidi

Arab Economic and Business Journal

Purpose: This research aims to explore how to reshape stock exchanges by using blockchain technology with an emphasis on the case of the Palestine Exchange. Design/methodology/approach: This research gathered primary data from semi-structured and open-ended interviews. Online interviews were conducted to get information from professionals and academics interested in blockchain. The sample for this research was determined using convenience sampling and a snowball sampling approach. The data was analyzed using the deductive content analysis method. Findings: The research revealed that implementing blockchain is appropriate for third-world countries because it does not necessitate the construction of buildings or infrastructure. Additionally, …

How To Put The Collapsed Lebanese Banking Sector On The Right Track?, Danielle Khalife, Jad Yammine, Tatiana El Bazi

Arab Economic and Business Journal

The revival of Lebanon involves regaining trust in its banking system. Starting by highlighting the main banking sector’s inefficiencies in Lebanon, as well as the bad investment practices that have led to the current financial crisis, a full business model that could restore confidence in the Lebanese banking sector, and increase its profitability in the foreseeable future is proposed. This new business structure tackles three main areas including, cost reduction, liabilities management, and income generation, is suggested with evidence on how this model could play a major role in the upcoming recovery period and lead to positive financial results.

Fast Moving Consumer Goods Sector In India – Tending Towards Oligopoly?, S. Anupama, Dhanisha Dharmajan, Rajiv Nair

Arab Economic and Business Journal

We study the performance of the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector, in India. It is the fourth largest sector in India. Macroeconomic factors, modern production techniques, robust logistics facilities, efficient distribution networks and superior marketing capabilities have given the sector an edge over the other sectors. Firm performance is determined by considering liquidity, solvency and profitability ratios and also by employing common size statements, and comparative statements. We find that the sector appears to be overly dependent on the performance of a few firms. We further find that firm performance is not related to non-commercial factors such as CSR.

Future Proofing Entrepreneurship In The Arab World, Haya Al-Dajani

Arab Economic and Business Journal

This conceptual article proposes a cooperative entrepreneurship framework with a producer cooperative enterprise start-up model to contribute to addressing the complex consequences of the social, political and economic challenges affecting the Arab world. The article argues that the adoption of a producer cooperative enterprise start-up model will contribute to future proofing entrepreneurship in the Arab world, and avoid a return to a preference for public sector employment that will stifle the sustainable social and economic development of the region. As such, the article contributes to bridging the gap in the literature on entrepreneurship start up support initiatives and models in …

Note From The Editors, Bettina Lynda Bastian, Nehme Azoury

Arab Economic and Business Journal

No abstract provided.

Worth In The Workforce: How To Reform The Fair Labor Standards Act 14(C) Provisions For Persons With Disabilities, Todd Robatin

Helm's School of Government Conference - 2021-2024

No abstract provided.

The Future Of Family-Operated Resort-Destinations, Colton L. Casselman

Political Science Theses and Capstones

The tourism industry, one of the largest in the world, is arguably one of the most volatile industries we look at. Through the varying sub-sectors of tourism, we narrow in on the family resort industry, predominately in the upper Midwest. You may hear me refer to them as Family-Operated-Resort-Destinations, but they serve unique clientele in a unique way. This industry faces immense pressure from mild tax code changes, politicians, DNR regulations, fishing quality, climate change, gas prices, foreign affairs and more. During this paper, I will examine the future of Family-Operated-Resort-Destinations.