This case study will identify and discuss four recent risk management disasters relating to the use of derivatives or financial innovation. The companies that will be discussed include AIG, Amaranth, Enron and Lehman Brothers. It will aim to elaborate on the steps of the disaster as well as the lessons learnt. It will further critically analyze these lessons with regards to these companies.
American International Group
In late 2008, American International Group (AIG), a worldwide insurance company suffered its most difficult financial crisis in its history. AIG sold Credit default swaps (CDS) as insurance to cover financial instruments such as bonds that created and led to the housing crisis (Davidson, 2008).
Most financial institutions would simultaneously buy and sell CDS protection at the same time (Davidson, 2008). This meant that they were netted out and made no losses (Davidson, 2008). However, one such insurance company AIG chose solely to sell CDS on collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) (Davidson, 2008). Hence, when CDOs started declining AIG was forced to pay out with no returns (Davidson, 2008). Thus began the downfall of AIG which resulted in stock prices declining dramatically which in turn made it difficult to convince other companies to invest in them (Davidson, 2008). With the introduction of the credit rating, real estate prices began to decline as many were declined mortgage loans (Davidson, 2008).
The decline in real estate prices led to the market value of mortgage-backed securities declining (Paul, 2014). In order to implement rapid disclosure of investment losses AIG marked down the value of its mortgage-backed securities portfolio (Paul, 2014). Such a drastic move resulted in a reduction of AIG’s capital ...
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... A higher leverage ratio indicates a higher risk. A higher leverage ratio should be used when the economy is stable and hedged when the economy becomes unstable (Niall Ferguson, 2008). Another option is for previous leverage regulations to be reinforced. The financial assets affected both real estate and leveraged assets. Lehman Brothers should have had a more diversified portfolio.
Investments are a trade-off between risk and profits. Bonus incentives are a major cause for bankruptcy. It encourages management to take big risks. Many employees take greater risks in order to get bigger bonuses. Bankers act without worrying about the risk involved. Their focus is more on the bonus that will be received. No bonuses should be given if stress tests have large risks, even if profits are great. This however requires stress testing to be executed by independent personnel.
The purpose of this paper is to provide a summary of the article called “Can We Keep Our Promises?” by Robert D. Arnott, and to help better understand the three key risks facing each investor.
The emergency rescue of the Royal Bank of Scotland in 2008 has cost the UK government thus the British taxpayer a huge amount of money. Many people are upset about the high bonuses the RBS management board have received, both because of the outrageously high amount and because the performance of the bank on the long-term was not good at all. According to the agency theory managers do not always act in the interest of the shareholder, but often act in the interest of themselves. The downfall of RBS could have been prevented if managers were not paid out a bonus based on their performance of one year, but rather a combination of a bonus based on their performance of multiple years and a bonus ...
Sase, J. F., and Gerard Senick. Another Mortgage Tsunami? “Let Them Eat Cake” (Part Two). 2010. Print.
Jake Clawson Ethical Communication Assignment 2/13/2014. JPMorgan Chase, Bailouts, and Ethics “Too big to fail” is a theory that suggests some financial institutions are so large and so powerful that their failure would be disastrous to the local and global economy, and therefore must be assisted by the government when struggles arise. Supporters of this idea argue that there are some institutions that are so important that they should be the recipients of beneficial financial and economic policies from government. On the other hand, opponents express that one of the main problems that may arise is moral hazard, where a firm that receives gains from these advantageous policies will seek to profit by it, purposely taking positions that are high-risk, high-return, because they are able to leverage these risks based on their given policy. Critics see the theory as counter-productive, and that banks and financial institutions should be left to fail if their risk management is not effective.
Many people today would consider the 2008, United States financial crisis a simple “malfunction” or “mistake”, but it was nothing close to that. Contrary to what many believe, renowned economists and financial advisors regarded the financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 to be the most devastating crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930’s. To make matters worse, the decline in the economy expanded nationwide, resulting in the recession of 2007 to 2009 (Brue). David Einhorn, CEO of GreenHorn Capital, even goes as far as to say "What strikes me the most about the recent credit market crisis is how fast the world is trying to go back to business as usual. In my view, the crisis wasn't an accident. We didn't get unlucky. The crisis came because there have been a lot of bad practices and a lot of bad ideas". The 2007 financial crisis was composed of the fall of many major financial institutions, an unknown increase in mortgage loan defaults, and the derived freezing up of credit availability (Brue). It was the result from risky mortgage loans and falling estate values (Brue) . Additionally, the financial crisis of 2007 was the result of underestimation of risk by faulty insurance securities made to protect holders of mortgage-back securities from risk of default and holders of mortgage-backed securities (Brue). Even to present day, America stills suffers from the aftermaths of the financial crisis.
Not only were millions of Americans been put out of work due to these manager’s actions, the American financial markets themselves were pushed to the brink of collapse. Despite the fact that the global financial markets, in reality, are not perfectly efficient, there is a corrective mechanism built into the day-to-day trading in the market. When prices are driven down by large sells, either by large investors or a movement in a stock, there are usually new buyers for these stocks at the cheaper price. Managers of...
The years 2008 shined a light on a group of people who were considered high society. When the stock market crashed in September 2008, the world shines a spotlight on the financial corporation. Words such as hedge fund manager and financial instrument such as credit default swaps are not words not known to everyday citizens. The economic downturn forced society to ask question not normally asked.
•Merrill Lynch, a massive investment back on Wall Street was the starter of the biggest mortgage companies to go wild. Merrill plan was to do a subprime mortgages that would get people to fail on their own toxic products. He knew those debts would stack up and then people would not afford to pay off that mortgage. His plan was to secretly bet against or insuring themselves to fail. Merrill only focused on making more money by doing subprime mortgages. Therefore, the plan was to get mortgages that would not be sustained and redo it into a subprime mortgages. Indeed he would sell them off other corporation that would not question the investment and would more likely not be able to understand the possible risk of buying it. Merrill was doing
According to the Case Management Society of America, case management is "a collaborative process of assessment, planning, facilitation, care coordination, evaluation, and advocacy for options and services to meet an individual's and family's comprehensive health needs through communication and available resources to promote quality, cost effective outcomes" (Case Management Society of America [CMSA], 2010). As a method, case management has moved to the forefront of social work practice. The social work profession, along with other fields of study, recognizes the difficulty of locating and accessing comprehensive services to meet needs. Therefore, case managers work with these
Investment banks, Rating agencies and Insurance companies are key components of the financial market. In this presentation, I’m going to explain how these three key roles worked together to create the 2008 financial crisis.
Obviously, financial establishments can endure breathtaking misfortunes notwithstanding when their risk management is top notch. They are, all things considered, in the matter of going out on a limb. At the point when risk management fails, be that as it may, it is in one of the many fundamental ways, almost every one of them exemplified in the present emergency. In some cases, the issue lies with the information or measures that risk directors depend on. At times it identifies with how they recognize and impart the risks an organization is presented to. Financial risk management is difficult to get right in the best of times.
The "subprime crises" was one of the most significant financial events since the Great Depression and definitely left a mark upon the country as we remain upon a steady path towards recovering fully. The financial crisis of 2008, became a defining moment within the infrastructure of the US financial system and its need for restructuring. One of the main moments that alerted the global economy of our declining state was the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on Sunday, September 14, 2008 and after this the economy began spreading as companies and individuals were struggling to find a way around this crisis. (Murphy, 2008) The US banking sector was first hit with a crisis amongst liquidity and declining world stock markets as well. The subprime mortgage crisis was characterized by a decrease within the housing market due to excessive individuals and corporate debt along with risky lending and borrowing practices. Over time, the market apparently began displaying more weaknesses as the global financial system was being affected. With this being said, this brings into question about who is actually to assume blame for this financial fiasco. It is extremely hard to just assign blame to one individual party as there were many different factors at work here. This paper will analyze how the stakeholders created a financial disaster and did nothing to prevent it as the credit rating agencies created an amount of turmoil due to their unethical decisions and costly mistakes.
Many of the “Elite” financial figures could not give a definite answer about why this crisis occurred as well as stated by many of the people interviewed, “We don’t know how it happened.” Many young brokers working for JP Morgan back in the middle of the 90’s believed they could come up with a way to cut risk, credit derivatives. Credit Derivatives are just a way of using other methods to separate and transfer risk to someone else other than the vender and free up capital. They tested their experiment with Exxon Mobile who were facing millions of dollars in damage for the Valdez Oil Spill back in 1989 by extending their line of credit. This also gave birth to credit default swaps (CDS) which a company wants to borrow money from someone who will buy their bond and pay the buyer back with interest over time. Once the JP Morgan and Exxon Mobile credit default swap happened, others followed in their path and the CDS began booming throughout the 90’s. The issue was that many banks in...
No firm can be a success without some form of risk management. Risk are the uncertainty in investments requiring an assessment. Risk assessment is a structured and systematic procedure, which is dependent upon the correct identification of hazards and an appropriate assessment of risks arising from them, with a view to making inter-risk comparisons for purposes of their control and avoidance (Nikolić and Ružić-Dimitrijevi, 2009). ERM is a practice that firms implement to manage risks and provide opportunities. ERM is a framework of identifying, evaluating, responding, and monitoring risks that hinder a firm’s objectives. The following paper is a comparison and evaluation to recommended practices for risk manage using article “Risk Leverage
The purpose of risk management is to protect an organization’s valuable assets information, hardware, and software. The purpose of risk management process is to identify and manage risks in such a way that a company is able to meet its strategic and financial targets. Risk management is a continuous process, by which the major risks are identified, listed and assessed, the key persons in charge of risk management are appointed and risks are prioritized according to an assessment scale in order to compare the effects and mutual significance of risks. It is very important that the organizations and business to be very well prepared to see what kind of risk we are facing, or the business can suffer in case of a major disaster.