Reading on Life Settlements

Mercer put together a great report on Life Settlements, dated April this year, and I had the opportunity to obtain the original report that goes for 90 pages of Power Point slides. Very detailed, to the point and unbiased, it makes an excellent background reading. The report is not publicly available, but an 8 page summary can be found here.

Life Markets: Trading Mortality and Longevity Risk with Life Settlements and Linked Securities

Another source of information I have recently acquired is the Life Markets: Trading Mortality and Longevity Risk with Life Settlements and Linked Securities. This is a collection of articles by market practitioners, and therefore has some natural bias in it, but it is well-structured and contains wealth of information.

So much to read, so little time...

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Investment Banking Series: Pitch Books

Investment Banking Series Post 3 Pitch Books 1. What is it anyway? A pitch book is the paramount of days and nights of a banker's hard work. It is a marketing tool that tries to set apart basically very similar banks and to support the claim that THIS bank, and NO ANY OTHER should be selected to arrange the deal. They say pitch books used to be actual books, but in the present world they are Power Point presentations printed out and bound in a plastic cover. The main purpose of the pitch book is to deliver two messages to the prospective client: (1) "we understand your business very well", and (2) "when it comes to arranging your deal, we are the best fit". Both claims are usually weak at best, but they are made elaborately and extensively, and the resulting multi page document often looks impressive. 2. Typical structure A pitch book will have varying structure depending on what product is being proposed, but there is a lot of similarities. Below is o...

Investment Banking Series: Equity Story

Investment Banking Series Post 6 Equity Story 1. What is it anyway? Equity Story is, in its essence, the reasoning why the particular stock should be bought by investors. It emphasizes the strong side of the company and places the stock in either the value or the growth category. In a nutshell, the value stock is expected to have little price appreciation, but pay out relatively high dividend, whereas the growth stock is expected to have a high appreciation potential, but not necessarily pay much dividend. How a stock is classified depends on several factors, such as where in the industry life cycle it is, what the macro conditions are, what industry it belongs to, or sometimes even if it has a hot buzzword in its description. For instance, a power generation company would usually be classified as a value stock: there is very little growth potential, but the cash flows are steady and not as much correlated with the economic conditions. An Internet portal or a biotech company ar...

US fund set to invest in Russian tech hub

The following link to an FT article is an interesting piece of reading. I follow with some comments in Russian. Даже не будучи специалистом в российском законодательстве, и зная об особенностях национального бизнеса только из комментариев бывших одноклассников и знакомых бизнесменов, сразу вижу в этом проекте легко узнаваемый шаблон: президент сказал "надо!", и все бросились поднимать "наш ответ Силиконовой Долине". Начинание похвальное, но оно игнорирует принципиальное отличие Калифорнии от Подмосковья: отлаженную правовую базу. Какие бы там не создавались "зоны" и "технопарки", до тех пор пока регистрация нового предприятия исчисляется не в днях, а в месяцах, никакой "Силиконовой Долины" в России не будет. И как говорится, как бы я хотел, чтобы я был не прав! US fund set to invest in Russian tech hub : "Siguler Guff, the private equity group, will invest $250m in a high-technology hub outside Moscow" ■

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