High Yield Debt Pricing

Cornerstone Research supported two experts who addressed allegations regarding an investment bank’s role in the failure of a life insurance company.

Cornerstone Research worked with two finance experts to address allegations regarding an investment bank’s role in the failure of a Florida life insurance company.

Our analysis validated the prices of the year-end trades.

The plaintiff alleged that the investment bank conspired to engage in year-end transactions aimed at concealing the life insurance company’s insufficient capital, and contributed to the company’s failure by purchasing highly illiquid assets from the life insurance company at a fraction of their value. The allegation of concealment of the capital deficiency centered on whether year-end trades in high yield securities were conducted at “market prices.”

In conjunction with the experts, we constructed a database of high yield debt prices that validated the prices of the year-end trades. We also analyzed the highly illiquid securities purchased by the bank from the life insurance company to refute the plaintiff’s claim that these securities were purchased at a fraction of their value. The case settled.