Structured Finance

In the wake of the credit crunch, structured finance is linked to bailed-out investment banks and overpaid executives rather than to the innovative financial solutions it continues to provide. The initial response from the financial markets has been a move back to basics, to plain vanilla transactions. Furthermore, securitization, derivatives and other structured products are facing intense regulatory and political scrutiny. These pressures notwithstanding, the potential of structured finance will play an important part in facilitating recovery. This book explains why. This book serves three purposes. First, it complements and updates the analysis of structured finance in the popular and highly acclaimed first volume in this series ("Securitization Law and Practice in the Face of the Credit Crunch"), with plenty of focus on derivatives. It includes a discussion of the collateralization of derivatives exposure as well as an analysis of novel derivative products such as weather and property derivatives. Second, it defines the key milestones of the credit crunch, focusing on the potential impact of the expected flow of litigation by aggrieved investors against the perceived deep pockets of arrangers and rating agencies around the world. Third, it illustrates ways in which the untapped potential of structured finance may well facilitate recovery. To this end, the book explores opportunities for securitization by sovereign states, by companies in emerging markets through DPRs, and by financial institutions plagued with non-performing loans and negative equity mortgages in the wake of property market conditions. Like its predecessor, this second volume in the series will again appeal to a wide variety of practitioners, whether lawyers in private practice or in-house or those active in the financial markets or in a supervisory or regulatory environment. Example structures and actual transactions make the topic very easily accessible and practice oriented. This book is an indispensable tool for any professionals connected with financial law in these turbulent times.