Ingo Walter

America faces two public finance challenges that - if left unaddressed - will have serious implications for the fiscal stability of state and local governments and for the quality of life of all Americans. The funded status of public pension plans and the state of the country's critical infrastructure are generally viewed as distinct subjects. This book argues otherwise. Over the long term, when one of them deteriorates, the other is sure to follow. Moreover, infrastructure investments are well suited to the portfolio needs of public pension plans, which themselves comprise the single largest pool of capital potentially available for the financing needs of American infrastructure and today are under-allocated to this asset type.This book begins with an analysis of the $4.3 trillion U.S. public pension system, drawing on a primary dataset comprising thousands of observations drawn from a decade of annual reports of the 25 largest American public pension systems - which together comprise about 55% of all public pension assets in the country. It then links sustainable pension finance to investments in real assets, specifically infrastructure projects."Bridging the Gaps" is intended to provide greater transparency to the complex public finance challenges that mark these issues. Those with an interest in the public pension system will learn much from the discussion of these complex organizations - so critical to sustainability of retirement benefits. Asset managers and other advisors, who sell to these investors, will benefit from an empathic approach to understanding the needs of their most important clients. The book concludes with a range of ideas that can be explored by responsible public officials and policymakers as well as infrastructure agencies and their advisors.The ultimate objective is to help in the search for solutions to the persistent gaps facing America's public pension system and at the same time unlocking capital to reduce America's persistent infrastructure problems - creating winners on both ends of the financial chain.

Few sectors of the global economy have experienced the dynamic and structural change that has occurred over the past several decades in banking and financial services or as much turbulence and damage to the economy and to ordinary people. Regulatory and technological changes have been among the main catalysts of change in the financial industry worldwide, making entrenched competitive structures obsolete and mandating the development of new products, new processes, new strategies, and new public policies toward the industry. This book attempts to reassess the continuing transformational process of global banking and finance - its causes, its course, and its consequences. It begins with an overview of the most recent developments and goes on to examine the major dimensions of international commercial and investment banking, including money and foreign exchange markets, debt capital markets, international bank lending, derivatives, asset-based and project financing, and equity capital markets. Later, the various advisory businesses -- mergers and acquisitions, privatizations, institutional asset management, and private banking -- are analyzed. In each case, the factors that distinguish the winners from the losers are identified. This is brought together in the final section of the book, which deals with problems of strategic positioning and execution, as well as critical risk issues and regulations.

There is virtually universal agreement that the fundamental cause of the global economic and financial crisis of 2007-09 was the combination of a credit boom and a housing bubble, but it is much less clear why this combination of events led to such a severe financial crisis.Manufacturing Tail Risk argues that what made this economic shock unique and led to such a severe financial crisis was the behavior of many of the large, complex financial institutions (LCFIs) that today dominate the financial industry. These LCFIs ignored their own business model of securitization and chose not to transfer credit risk to other investors. Instead, they employed securitization to manufacture and retain tail risk that was systemic in nature and inadequately capitalized.This book provides a brief history of how the U.S. financial system evolved into its current form. It presents the manner in which banks built tail (systemic) risk exposures in large measure to get around capital requirements, in contrast to their earlier business models, and it explains how lax regulation contributed to these outcomes. It also examines alternative explanations for the financial crisis. The authors conclude that global imbalances and loose monetary policy were relevant proximate contributors to the crisis by producing an asset-price bubble in the United States that ultimately led to the financial crisis.It concludes with a discussion of possible remedies to charge banks for manufacturing tail risks and to contain such propensity in the first place. And while the focus is on the United States, the authors review risk-taking and realized losses by LCFIs in other parts of the world.

Nearly seventy years after the last great stock market bubble and crash, another bubble emerged and burst, despite a thick layer of regulation designed since the 1930s to prevent such things. This time the bubble was enormous, reflecting nearly twenty years of double-digit stock market growth, and its bursting had painful consequence. The search for culprits soon began, and many were discovered, including not only a number of overreaching corporations, but also their auditors, investment bankers, lawyers and indeed, their investors. In Governing the Modern Corporation, Smith and Walter analyze the structure of market capitalism to see what went wrong. They begin by examining the developments that have made modern financial markets--now capitalized globally at about $70 trillion--so enormous, so volatile and such a source of wealth (and temptation) for all players. Then they report on the evolving role and function of the business corporation, the duties of its officers and directors and the power of its Chief Executive Officer who seeks to manage the company to achieve as favorable a stock price as possible. They next turn to the investing market itself, which comprises mainly financial institutions that own about two-thirds of all American stocks and trade about 90% of these stocks. These investors are well informed, highly trained professionals capable of making intelligent investment decisions on behalf of their clients, yet the best and brightest ultimately succumbed to the bubble and failed to carry out an appropriate governance role. In what follows, the roles and business practices of the principal financial intermediaries--notably auditors and bankers--are examined in detail. All, corporations, investors and intermediaries, are found to have been infected by deep-seated conflicts of interest, which add significant agency costs to the free-market system. The imperfect, politicized role of the regulators is also explored, with disappointing results. The entire system is seen to have been compromised by a variety of bacteria that crept in, little by little, over the years and were virtually invisible during the bubble years. These issues are now being addressed, in part by new regulation, in part by prosecutions and class action lawsuits, and in part by market forces responding to revelations of misconduct. But the authors note that all of the market's professional players--executives, investors, experts and intermediaries themselves--carry fiduciary obligations to the shareholders, clients, and investors whom they represent. More has to be done to find ways for these fiduciaries to be held accountable for the correct discharge of their duties.

This book is intended to lay out, in a clear and intuitive as well as comprehensive way, what we know - or think we know - about mergers and acquisitions in the financial services sector. It evaluates their underlying drivers, factual evidence as to whether or not the basic economic concepts and strategic precepts are correct. It looks closely at the managerial dimensions in terms of the efficacy of merger implementation, notably the merger integration process. The focus is on enhancing shareholder value creation and the execution of strategies for the successful management of mergers. It also has a strong public-policy component in this "special" industry where successes can pay dividends and failures can cause serious problems that reach well beyond the financial services industry itself. The financial services sector is about halfway through one of the most dramatic periods of restructuring ever undergone by a major global industry. The impact of the restructuring has carried well beyond shareholders of the firms and involved into the domain of regulation and public policy as well as global competitive performance and economic growth. Financial services are a center of gravity of economic restructuring activity. M&A transactions in the financial sector comprise a surprisingly large share of the value of merger activity worldwide -- including only deals valued in excess of $100 million, during the period 1985-2000 there were approximately 233,700 M&A transactions worldwide in all industries, for a total volume of $15.8 trillion. Of this total, there were 166,200 mergers in the financial services industry (49.7%), valued at $8.5 trillion (54%). In all of restructuring frenzy, the financial sector has probably had far more than its share of strategic transactions that have failed or performed far below potential because of mistakes in basic strategy or mistakes in post-merger integration. It has also had its share of rousing successes. This book considers the key managerial issues, focusing on M&A transactions as a key tool of business strategy - "doing the right thing" to augment shareholder value. But in addition, the degree of integration required and the historic development of integration capabilities on the part of the acquiring firm, disruptions in human resources and firm leadership, cultural issues, timeliness of decision-making and interface management have co-equal importance - "doing it right."

In 1933 and 1956, the United States sharply limited the kinds of securities, commercial, and insurance activities banks could engage in. These regulations remain in place despite profound changes in the economic environment, in the structure of the national and international financial markets, and in technology. This book evaluates the case for and against eliminating these barriers. The authors study the consequences of bank regulation in the US as it relates to competition in international financial markets. They examine universal banking systems in other countries, especially Germany, Switzerland, and the UK, and how they work. They then apply the lessons to US banking, paying particular attention to the benchmarks of stability, equity, efficiency, and competitiveness against which the performance of national financial systems should be measured. They propose a level playing field on which any number of forms of organization can grow in the financial services sector, in which universal banking is one of the permitted structures, and where regulation is linked to function.

Covers the liberalization of capital movements in Europe and co-ordination efforts on credit institutions, investment firms, the securities market, undertakings for collective investment in transferable securities, insurance companies and pension funds.