I would like to be considered by TopTal evaluators for a couple of expertise areas to include, treasury managers (https://www.toptal.com/finance/treasury-manager)
and derivatives consultants (https://www.toptal.com/finance/derivatives).
Similar to your featured experts in these two areas, I offer a distinctive blend of practitioner expertise in capital markets, risk management, and balance-sheet valuation and restructuring with my successful experience as a consultant for strategy and solutions for the same. Moreover, I bring considerable academic and teaching experience - I teach School of Mortgage Banking classes to industry practitioners on behalf of the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) for the students to earn the CMB title (Certified Mortgage Banker). Furthermore, I bring my significant experience of being an expert witness for financial litigation.
I would be thrilled if TopTal would consider me as a featured expert. I believe it would be to our mutual advantage. While it would be obvious benefit to me, it would expand your bench of multi-functions experts.
Listed below are verifiable and newswire published examples of my experience, expertise, and solutions that have improved Portfolio risk management, Liability and Hedging-management, and Balance sheet management at Freddie Mac (20 years of corporate career). I can share examples of my strategy consulting and solutions implementation experience in the 7 years at FIRM Advisors in our follow on disusssions.
1. Example of Derivatives Management (Hedging and ALM Cost Management)
Corporate Issue
Senior management of Freddie Mac wanted to reduce overall funding and hedging cost of its investment portfolio, as measured over time. To solve the corporate strategic problem, I was given responsibility for developing a solution. My team and I conceptualized a new and innovative financing product that would act as a hedge for the reference assets and provide matched funding without actually encumbering the assets.
Solution
Development of an innovative hedging product to solve macro hedging and funding issues.
We created and implemented a new product strategy and its implementation channels. The process required coordinating with several internal departments and the regulator (FHFA) to move the agenda forward while forging agreements between stakeholders. For investor outreach and book-running, I engaged Goldmaan Sachs as our lead Wall-Street Banker to secure orders for this unique hybrid product between mortgages-debt-derivatives, naming the it Mortgage Linked Amortizing Notes (MLAN). As head of the debt and derivatives trading desks at Freddie Mac, I supervised the issuance and subsequent secondary vauation of this first MLAN tranch of US$ 3 billion.
This MLAN behaved as it was supposed to, as a synthetic CMO product, and significantly reduced the financing and hedging costs of the referenced mortgages over time. Next at Freddie Mac, several parts of this MLANs innovative financial engineering and infrastructure were adopted for other credit-risk distribution programs at Freddie Mac, most notably the STACR product, to lay off credit risks. This program now exceed US$ 1.5 trillion of credit risk transferred.
News story link for the issuance of MLANs: https://asreport.americanbanker.com/news/freddie-hopes-to-issue-more-mlans
2. Example of Treasury Management (Developing a New Product/Program)
Corporate Issue
Freddie Mac’s regulator, FHFA, mandated it to reduce debt rollover risk to a tighter threshold than the company was running. This required raising ratio of long-term debt to total debt outstanding. Senior management wanted to issue large amounts of long-term debt at the lowest possible cost. The problem was that the company’s periodic financing programs bound it to an issuance calendar. Moreover, there was insufficient demand for additional fixed rate debt to be issued without adversely impacting the costs in a significant way. As head of the liability and liquidity desks (Treasury), I was given the charge to solve the issue.
Solution
Development of new funding program of issuing floating-rate notes in significant size.
I championed a new funding program to issue multi-billion dollar issues of floating-rate Notes indexed to LIBOR and Fed Funds. After management approvals for insituting this new funding program, Freddie Mac was back in compliance with the tighter regulatory threshold within three months of issuing these new notes. This new floating rate program provided sustainable long-term funding. In addition to reducing the debt roll-over ratio, this solution of issuing floating rate notes was also the lowest cost solution.
I championed a new funding program to issue multi-billion dollar issues of floating-rate Notes (FRN) indexed to LIBOR and Fed Funds. After management approvals for instituting this new funding program, Freddie Mac was back in compliance with the tighter regulatory threshold within three months of issuing these new notes. Soon after, Fannie Mae followed. And then supranationals like the World Bank and others. This new floating rate program provided sustainable long-term funding and was also the lowest cost long term-funding. We engaged different broker dealers throughout the life of the program. After about 3 years that Freddie Mac first issued its FRN, the US Treasury consulted their primary dealer group about the viability of doing the same. Today, this floating rate debt program is an integral part of the US Treasury's own funding mechanisms.
3. Example of Balance-Sheet Management (Re-structuring the Liability Portfolio)
Corporate Issue
Senior management of Freddie Mac wanted to restructure the liability portfolios for regulatory and economic considerations by reducing the amount and ratio of short-term debt to total debt. As head of the liquidity and funding desks (Treasury), I was given the responsibility to restructure the liability portfolio.
Solution
Development of new funding program for issuing floating-rate notes in significant size.
I championed to senior management and to the regulator, FHFA, to permit us a tender offer to selectively repurchase outstanding debt securities in size and issue new term-debt in size.
Successfully obtaining management and regulatory approvals, I engaged Barclays as the lead Wall-Street Banker to execute a tender offer for soon maturing floating-rate debt securities for more than US$ 70 billion. The financial institution accepted more than 25% of the tendered notes and paid cash to investors of more than $18 billion in cash and reissuing new longer maturity securities. The regulator and senior management deemed the repurchase a huge success.
To date, this remains as the largest liability-restructuring transaction for any non-sovereign issuer in the world.
News story link for the liability restructuring trade:
Link to my Biography: