Monday, September 14, 2009

Remembering LEHMAN after a year

Last September, something unusual happened which brought a turbulence in the world economy. The major stock markets hit an all time low, fear gripped the investors minds, recession everywhere and the list of negativities continues. It’s been a year and time to relook at the major events, impacts and lessons learnt straight from the LEHMANIAN BOOKS.

The economists believe that it was capital inadequacy and not liquidity which was a major factor for the failure of Lehman Brothers. A risk management framework should be in place to identify and implement risk mitigation measures to reduce the likelihood of future credit and liquidity-based losses along with addressing the complexities of a changing regulatory landscape.

The firm should increasingly focus on these areas to mitigate the likelihood of future market and credit based losses.

* Understand and monitor counterparty, market and credit risks.
* Increase the operational effectiveness of collateral effectiveness.
* Measure and monitor liquidity risk.
* Understand the importance of transparency of internal controls surrounding the safeguarding of assets.

A central lesson from Lehman Brothers is that prime brokerage clients should understand not only where their assets are being held, but also the contractual provisions and legal remedies that exist should a prime broker or other counterparty default. Assets may not be held at the legal entity with whom the prime brokerage agreement was executed, and may have been transferred to other legal jurisdictions globally. Investor protections and bankruptcy/insolvency laws differ depending on the legal jurisdiction in which assets are held at the time an entity either files for bankruptcy or otherwise becomes insolvent.

Policies should be implemented to manage capital market risk across the enterprise. This may include re-tooling or developing and implementing robust models to measure market, liquidity, and credit risk. Models and tools should be linked with effectively designed governance practices to establish risk appetite, and to monitor, manage, and report risks.

Valuation models should be appropriately stress tested to provide senior management with confidence that a complete and accuratepicture of the firm’s financial position is visible on a daily basis.

Truly said, a structured Risk Management Framework in place can help firms to weather the financial instability. Do, we want another Lehman to happen?? The answer is certainly NO.