A developing breakdown in an obscure corner of the credit-market involving debt instruments called “auction rate securities” could represent the latest threat to emerge from the credit crisis. According to news reports (here and here), the absence of buyers for these securities has caused several recent auctions to fail, forced isuers
February 2008
Welcome to The D & O Diary’s New Site!
After nearly two years publishing at its original site on Blogger, The D & O Diary is proud to move into its new home on LexBlog. I hope that all of my readers will welcome and enjoy the new site’s features. The new site should be easier to navigate, and has some added functionality, such…
About Those Subprime D & O Loss Estimates
Over the past several weeks, several industry observers and analysts have tried to put a number on the insurance industry’s aggregate subprime-related loss exposure. At one end, Bear Stearns on January 24, 2008 estimated the industry’s exposure at $8-9 billion (refer here). By contrast, on February 8, 2008, Lehman Brothers estimated (here)…
Don’t Forget About Options Backdating
Amidst all the subprime hoopla, it would be easy to forget that only a year ago, options backdating was the hot topic. Options backdating might now seem passé, but several considerations suggest that options backdating remains important and that we still have a long way to go before we can be sure we have seen…