Any serious attempt at financial reform has to grapple with three laws that Congress cannot repeal or amend:
1. Gresham’s Law. Centuries ago, Gresham observed that bad money drives out good. He was commenting on currency debasement, but his principle applies to many other human endeavors. For instance, banks that aggressively exploited regulatory capital rules [...]
Author Archives: Mike O'Sullivan
Three Laws Congress Can’t Change
Posted in Uncategorized Comments closed
The Week’s Links
Another slow week (or two, but who’s counting?) on the blog posting front. Tweets are more resistant to mid-summer doldrums, as evidenced by the following:
Simpson Thacher survey of recent public M&A deals finds that the dichotomy between PE and strategic buyers is disappearing: optionality for all? Maybe not: the DealProf discusses the recent BankRate deal [...]
Posted in Best Client Memos, Tweet Dumps Comments closed
The Week’s Links
Things are quiet around here. Too quiet. But there’s lots of good stuff in this week’s collection of links:
Milbank offers a concise overview of debt exchange offers. My take: hot topic, more common, but still rare because it’s so unwieldy compared to the alternatives and carries a stigma.
A&P article on the jurisdictional basis for the [...]
Posted in Best Client Memos, Tweet Dumps Comments closed
Tweet Dump
Thanks to Martin Wolf, this week we’re back to a Tweet Dump. Four helpful client memos and one excellent FT column:
Helpful overview from DLA of at-the-market offerings. Unlike some current practices memos, this one actually includes a list of recent deals. That should be a required feature in any current practices memo.
FT’s Martin Wolf on why [...]
Posted in Best Client Memos, Tweet Dumps Comments closed
The Cash-Only Comp Plan
Here’s a radical idea for reforming executive compensation: Pay executives only in cash. Ditch the equity.
You object: “But without equity, they won’t think like owners.” To me, that’s a feature, not a bug. Managers should think like managers. Owners should think like owners. Things get confused when we expect our managers to think like owners [...]
Posted in Executive Compensation Comments closed
Best Client Memos
This week’s Tweet Dump consists entirely of links to good client memos, so for now we’ll dump the Tweet Dump title and return to this feature’s kinder, gentler pre-Twitter title.
Sign of the Times: Weil Gotshal memo questions “blind” contract compliance, says look for opportunities for efficient breach.
Sign of the Times II: Alston & Bird memo [...]
Posted in Best Client Memos, Tweet Dumps Comments closed
Financial Reform Glossary
After reviewing President Obama’s “Financial Regulatory Reform: A New Foundation” white paper, I am sure there is one conclusion we can all agree on: the financial world is all about the acronyms.
Sure, we may be losing the OCC, OTS and PWG, but with the addition of the CFPA, FCCC, FSOC, NBS and ONI the acronym count [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Comments closed
Parachutes: The Golden, the Fool’s Gold and the Foolish
A few things about golden parachutes bother me:
1. The term. The term “golden parachute” is intended to convey a certain cushy lavishness. In fact, it makes no sense. A parachute made of gold will drop like a lead balloon. With a golden parachute, you won’t get a soft landing, you’ll plummet to a bone-crushing [...]
Posted in Executive Compensation Comments closed
Governance: The Platonic Ideal(s)
When we say a corporation’s governance is good or bad, what exactly do we mean by that?
I get the sense that a lot of us have in mind a Platonic ideal form of corporate governance against which we measure individual companies, sorting those deviating the least from the ideal into the “good” category and those [...]
Posted in Uncategorized Comments closed
Tweet Dump
Things have been a little slow lately on the blog and Twitter fronts. Here’s the slim pickings:
Mayer Brown explains how a Delta Air earnings call led to an antitrust class action.
The Washington Post profiles SEC Chair Mary Schapiro. My main takeaway: her job is all about brand management.
Nice overview from MoFo on 3(a)(9) exchange offers.
“A [...]
Posted in Tweet Dumps Comments closed