After Sure-Bet Investment Fails, a Bank Contends it was Duped (Excerpt)
New York Times- January 20, 2009
by Vikas Bajaj

How did so many investments like Gemstone go so wrong? Janet Tavakoli, a leading expert on so-called structured investments like Gemstone, says there is plenty of blame to go around. Some financiers who created these investments obscured risks, she says. And some investors, lured by promsises of risk-free riches, became "willing victims," she says.


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Janet Tavakoli is the president of Tavakoli Structured Finance, a Chicago-based firm that provides consulting to financial institutions and institutional investors. Ms. Tavakoli has more than 20 years of experience in senior investment banking positions, trading, structuring and marketing structured financial products. She is a former adjunct professor of derivatives at the University of Chicago's Graduate School of Business. She is the author of: Credit Derivatives & Synthetic Structures (John Wiley & Sons, 1998, 2001), Structured Finance & Collateralized Debt Obligations (John Wiley & Sons, 2008), and
Dear Mr. Buffett: What An Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street (John Wiley & Sons January 2009)

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