Structured Success (Excerpt)
University of Chicago Magazine May/June ’08 Volume 100, Issue 4
By Amy Braverman Puma

When financial consultant Janet Tavakoli talks, people listen. At least, they should.

In May 2007 BusinessWeek reporter Matthew Goldstein called Janet Tavakoli, hoping the Chicago-based consultant could help him sort out an SEC filing from Everquest Financial—a new firm underwritten by Bear Stearns. “I was really busy,” recalls Tavakoli, MBA’81, “and I said, ‘Go away.’” Goldstein persisted, and finally she read the filing. “Actually, Matt,” she told him, “this is a huge story.”

Goldstein’s May 11, 2007, article was the first to question Bear Stearns, noting the move looked like an attempt “to pawn off risky assets [from two hedge funds] onto retail investors.” It quoted Tavakoli calling the firm’s close ties to Everquest a “moral hazard.” Soon lenders pulled their credit lines to the two Bear Stearns hedge funds involved; by June the IPO was withdrawn, and the company sparked a market panic when those funds collapsed. After announcing the first loss in Bear Stearns’s eight-decade history in January 2008, in March, with help from the Federal Reserve, it was bought by JPMorgan Chase.

END OF EXCERPT

Article is available via the above link from University of Chicago Magazine.

Clients of Tavakoli Structured Finance also have access to proprietary TSF research, which is not published in any other paid or public forum.

Please click here for other articles.