Raising the Bar on Off-Balance-Sheet Finance
The Street.com - July 4, 2003
By Matthew Goldstein Senior Writer

But Fin 46 also is sending companies with seemingly legitimate SPEs scrambling to meet the approaching deadline. And it appears many won't be able to, even though some money managers see an opportunity to profit from Fin 46 by specializing in helping to meet the 10% requirement.

" The SPE itself is simply a tool or a shell. The risk comes from what people are doing with the shell," said Janet Tavakoli, president of Tavakoli Structured Finance, a consulting firm. "There have been many beneficial uses of special-purpose entities by banks, like for securitizing mortgage-backed securities."

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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).

Janet Tavakoli's book on the global financial meltdown is Dear Mr. Buffett: What An Investor Learns 1,269 Miles From Wall Street (Wiley 2009).

Clients of Tavakoli Structured Finance have the benefit of proprietary consultation, which is not available in any other paid or public forum. Clients also commission proprietary research and analysis.

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