Your Slogan Goes Here

CSFME Research

Academic researchers in 2005 published a study (Christoffersen) claiming that empty voting was rampant in U.S. securities lending markets. That research was cited in a widely-reported 2006 law review paper (Hu and Black) equating securities lending with derivative abuses. Although the Center in 2009 found no evidence of empty voting in American markets, a study that was later affirmed by two prominent academic teams, no similar research has yet been conducted for non-U.S. markets. In September 2011, the European Securities Markets Association (ESMA) issued a Request for Information about lending practices in EU markets. In response, the Center announced a live pilot of Lender Directed Voting for the 2012 proxy season. 

Research Highlights

Lender-Directed Voting
An edited transcript of a response by Ed Blount, Executive Director, Center for the Study of Financial Market Evolution, and ASTEC Consulting, New York, in a webcast with Professor Henry Hu, University of Texas Law School, Austin, Texas, and Mr. Christopher Kunkle, Vice President of JP Morgan Chase Bank, New York, on March 21, 2007, as moderated by Ms. Diana Bourke, Executive Vice President of Institutional Shareholder Services, ISS Governance Forums. (full article)

Empty Voting 

In 2006, a team of academic researchers claimed to find evidence of "vote buying" and manipulation of corporate governance in the U.S. equities securities lending markets. Their studies claimed that spikes in equities.  CSFME research concluded that there are several reasons to question the validity of these academic conclusions.  (full paper)

 

Liability Dynamics
After the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, investors were shocked to learn that even senior executives failed to appreciate how vulnerable their firms were when denied access to short-term funding markets. Similar funding denials preceded the de facto collapses, shotgun mergers, or bailouts of other large investment banks, as well as AIG, Citigroup, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. (full article)Copyright © CSFME 2009. All Rights Reserved.

CSFME Library

CSFME's library houses reports, studies, and other documents created by CSFME and other financial industry experts and academics.  This collection provides market participants with easy access to the resources they need to understand the most current issues affecting market efficiency.  

Library Documents

Document Collection

  Search
Categories
Fri 02/17/2012 @ 09:17 - Uploaded by CSFME
Lender-Directed Voting (LDV) presentation at the 2012 IMN Beneficial Owners Securities Lending Conference.  The presentation highlights the benefits, operations, and current status of LDV, concluding that a live pilot is on-going.
Fri 02/17/2012 @ 09:15 - Uploaded by CSFME
Borrowed proxy abuse study results presented at the 2012 IMN Beneficial Owners' Securities Lending Conference.  The results indicate that previous findings of borrowed proxy abuse are unsubstantiated after testing with larger data sets.
Tue 02/07/2012 @ 01:01 - Uploaded by CSFME
CSFME letter to the New York Stock Exchange detailing the benefits and legal considerations of Lender-Directed Voting.
Tue 11/29/2011 @ 07:52 - Uploaded by CSFME
This September 17, 2010 paper on the Basel III requirements on capital, liquidity and leverage (as amended after the 26 July communiqué and ratified on September 12, 2010) analyzes implications, issues and interconnections between them and discuss some of new trends in best practice of banks’ risk management and capital optimization that are likely to emerge as a result.
Mon 11/28/2011 @ 02:15 - Uploaded by CSFME
This July 2010 Federal Reserve Bank of New York monograph documents the origins, evolution, and economic role of the shadow banking system.  The report is intended to aid regulators and policy-makers to reform, regulate and supervise the process of securitized credit intermediation in a market-based financial system.
Fri 11/11/2011 @ 01:53 - Uploaded by CSFME
In his statement before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's September 29, 2009 roundtable on securities lending, CSFME's Executive Director Ed Blount outlined the Center's research findings regarding cash collateral reinvestment, borrower default, lending agent compensation and fee splits, and proxy voting.  
Fri 11/11/2011 @ 01:51 - Uploaded by CSFME
“Risks and Responsibilities in Securities Lending” by Ed Blount 
Testimony to the United States Senate Special Committee on Aging 
Chairman Herb Kohl (D‐WI) and Ranking Member Bob Corker (R‐TN), Wednesday, March 16, 2011. 


Wed 11/09/2011 @ 03:27 - Uploaded by CSFME
Early in 2011, Ed Blount, CSFME Executive Director and ABA Banking Journal contributing editor, interviewed Gregoire Bordier, senior partner at Bordier & Cie. They discussed the experience of being a private banker in the midst of the financial crisis, and what makes a private bank in Switzerland tick.
MORE INFORMATION... (23893 K
Tue 11/08/2011 @ 03:48 - Uploaded by CSFME
CSFME Executive Director, Ed Blount, reviews two books taking opposite sides in the debate about the role short selling played in the financial crisis.  
Fri 11/04/2011 @ 02:33 - Uploaded by CSFME
After the failure of the computer models, the “market posse” assessed the degree of risk that existed for Bear Stearns’s counterparties, and it turned out to be quite accurate. This September 2008 article in the RMA Journal by Ed Blount examines what went wrong during the financial crisis, and how market participants were misled and let down by traditional methods of assessing risk.