Category Archives: structured finance

R&R’s Raynes on Goldman’s Greek Deals

McClatchy Newspapers quotes R&R Consulting principal Sylvain Raynes on the involvement of Goldman Sachs in covering up Greece’s sovereign debt.
Read the full story by Kevin G. Hall and Greg Gordon, “Goldman under scrutiny for its role in Greece’s fiscal woes,” McClatchy Newspapers, February 25, 2010.

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Which Direction for Banking Reform?

Naked Capitalism’s Yves Smith makes a compelling case for the need for structural reform. She is spot-on about the significance of disintermediation for the banking industry and the need to decouple risk. Her lament—”I see perilous little grappling with the problem that [Bank of England’s Mervyn] King flagged, that of industry structure”—really resonates with me.
I believe […]

Also posted in banking reform, subprime mortgage crisis | Leave a comment

R&R’s Raynes Comments on Anniversary of Lehman Collapse

The Los Angeles Times quotes R&R Consulting’s Sylvain Raynes on the lessons learned — or not— in the financial industry one year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers.
“[Raynes] became an early critic of the excesses in the so-called structured-finance market. Now, instead of creating the products, he helps investors analyze the complex securities they already own […]

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The Fault, Dear Trader, Lies Not In Our Deals, But In Ourselves

Over the past few weeks of this summer of discontent, the search for sub-prime villains has grown ever more intense and sordid. Media-bound auto da fe has been set up to burn the most obviously flawed Wall Street personalities at the stake of incompetence, allegedly in order to renew the faith of the gullible populace […]

Also posted in Rating Agencies, Sylvain Raynes, subprime mortgage crisis | Leave a comment

Capital, Not Toasters, Dr. Krugman

It wasn’t Dr. Krugman’s hate-mail treatment of securitization that made my brain go tilt.
(I say this even though we concur with Barry Ritholz’s reasoning in his blog article, “Paul Krugman is Wrong About Securitization.” )
What really got to me was the reference to toaster giveaways.
Toasters! Sylvain paid $5 for ours — used — twenty years […]

Also posted in bailout | Leave a comment

Black Holes in the Securitization System: Rutledge in National Journal Magazine

R&R’s Ann Rutledge discusses how flawed securitization set off the economic crisis in the cover story of the current issue of National Journal Magazine:
“Until the early part of this decade, Rutledge says, most of the blueprints for building structured securities were imperfect but honest. Sometime around 2002, however, fraudulent crews invaded the market by using the […]

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Time to Start Focusing on Value

It is now clear that for years we have been putting our money where our mouth isn’t.
Non-recourse, off-balance sheet finance, a.k.a. securitization/structured finance, is about the value of a pool of loans where the risks are redistributed inside a structure. What are the loans worth? And what are securities worth that are backed by an undivided […]

Also posted in bailout, subprime mortgage crisis | Leave a comment

R&R Structures $150 Mln Film Securitization for Tunisian Co.

Tunisian asset manager Finaud Capital Management is preparing a $150 million film securitization. The Maghreb Media Buyout Bridge Fund aims to give independent filmmakers more access to funding, minimize investor risk and encourage film production in the Maghreb region, which includes Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Libya and Mauritania. “This transaction will change how independent films are […]

Also posted in Next Generation, RR Consulting, Sylvain Raynes | Leave a comment

R&R In the News — NHK (Japan)

Sylvain Raynes and Ann Rutledge are featured in a segment of “NHK Special,” a “60 Minutes”-style public affairs program that will air in the U.S. on Sunday, July 6, at 10:00 PM EST on TV Japan. The segment originally aired nationwide in Japan on June 23.
Sylvain and Ann specifically address the subprime crisis, how it happened, […]

Also posted in Ann Rutledge, Next Generation, Sylvain Raynes, TV, risk measurement, subprime mortgage crisis | Leave a comment

Structured Finance: the Unknown Ideal

The last six months have brought American finance to the edge of the abyss. Mortals who, not so long ago, had seemingly achieved demiurge deal-making status are now experiencing their Götterdammerung. A single question now poses and imposes itself: what will the next six months reveal about our financial understanding? As always, only two possibilities […]

Also posted in Curmudgeon, Sylvain Raynes | Leave a comment
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