Course Objectives
Participants will be able to:
- Distinguish the key business and financial risks for different types of securities firm (broker dealers, brokers, specialist boutiques etc.)
- Identify strong and weak performers using benchmarks for the key performance, liquidity, capital and asset quality measures
- Use market indicators, quantitative and qualitative analysis to and detect early signals of changing credit quality
- Evaluate financial statements to uncover key credit issues and the impact of differing accounting policies.
Target Audience
An intermediate credit course for experienced commercial, investment banking and fixed income professionals responsible for credit risk management, origination, or fixed income investment, sales/trading. Participants with less experience in the analysis of financial statements may wish to attend the two day Introduction to Bank Financial Statements, which leads into this workshop.
The majority of Fitch Training programmes are offered at an intermediate and advanced level. There are no specific prerequisite courses to attend our programmes, however some topic knowledge maybe required. Please refer to the target audience to see what level of prior knowledge is required for a specific course.
Content
ANALYTIC OVERVIEW
- Perspective on securities companies - regulators, rating agencies, debt and equity investors
- Purpose payback model - key issues in debt and counterparty exposures to securities companies
OPERATING ENVIRONMENT
- Understanding the risks in the different securities markets
- Key competitive issues by sub-sector - investment banks, wholesale brokers, specialists, prime brokers, retail brokers etc.
- Regulation and supervision - focal points; impact on strategy and credit standing
MANAGEMENT, FRANCHISE AND OWNERSHIP
- Critical management issues for securities companies - strategy, risk management (VaR and other models), corporate governance and key man issues (for smaller companies)
- Shareholders - quality of financial and business support
- Double leverage and other group or conglomerate risks
- Franchise - maintaining advantage in a competitive market
FINANCIAL FUNDAMENTALS
- Statement logic - key accounting policies and risk of window dressing
- Performance risk - earnings volatility and cost control
- Business risk - risk profile of securities company products and businesses
- Market risk / asset quality - key accounting issues, securities haircuts, off balance sheet exposures etc.
- Financial risk - managing funding stability and liquidity risk
- Capital adequacy - regulatory and analytic tools to assess the strength of capital and the risks of leverage
- Early warning signals - lessons learned from a failed securities company.
Workshop Times
Below are typical timings for our courses; upon registration we shall advise you if these have changed.
Breakfast: 8.30am
Course Start: 9.00am
Course End: Between 5.00pm and 5.30pm
Lunch starts between 12.30pm and 1.00pm, and lasts no longer than 1 hour.
Short breaks of 10 - 15 minutes are taken mid morning and mid afternoon.