Special-purpose Entity
A special-purpose entity (SPE; or, in Europe and India, special-purpose vehicle/SPV; or, in some cases in each EU jurisdiction, FVC, financial vehicle corporation) is a legal entity (usually a limited company of some type or, sometimes, a limited partnership) created to fulfill narrow, specific or temporary objectives. SPEs are typically used by companies to isolate the firm from financial risk. A formal definition is "The Special Purpose Entity is a fenced organization having limited predefined purposes and a legal personality". Normally a company will transfer assets to the SPE for management or use the SPE to finance a large project thereby achieving a narrow set of goals without putting the entire firm at risk. SPEs are also commonly used in complex financings to separate different layers of equity infusion. Commonly created and registered in tax havens, SPEs allow tax avoidance strategies unavailable in the home district. Round-tripping is one such strategy. In addition, th ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Company (law)
A company, abbreviated as co., is a legal entity representing an association of people, whether natural, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common purpose and unite to achieve specific, declared goals. Companies take various forms, such as: * voluntary associations, which may include nonprofit organizations * business entities, whose aim is generating profit * financial entities and banks * programs or educational institutions A company can be created as a legal person so that the company itself has limited liability as members perform or fail to discharge their duty according to the publicly declared incorporation, or published policy. When a company closes, it may need to be liquidated to avoid further legal obligations. Companies may associate and collectively register themselves as new companies; the resulting entities are often known as corporate groups. Meanings and definitions A company can be defined as an "artificia ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mortgage-backed Security
A mortgage-backed security (MBS) is a type of asset-backed security (an 'instrument') which is secured by a mortgage or collection of mortgages. The mortgages are aggregated and sold to a group of individuals (a government agency or investment bank) that securitizes, or packages, the loans together into a security that investors can buy. Bonds securitizing mortgages are usually treated as a separate class, termed residential; another class is commercial, depending on whether the underlying asset is mortgages owned by borrowers or assets for commercial purposes ranging from office space to multi-dwelling buildings. The structure of the MBS may be known as "pass-through", where the interest and principal payments from the borrower or homebuyer pass through it to the MBS holder, or it may be more complex, made up of a pool of other MBSs. Other types of MBS include collateralized mortgage obligations (CMOs, often structured as real estate mortgage investment conduits) and collate ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (United States)
Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP or U.S. GAAP, pronounced like "gap") is the accounting standard adopted by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and is the default accounting standard used by companies based in the United States. The Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) publishes and maintains the Accounting Standards Codification (ASC), which is the single source of authoritative nongovernmental U.S. GAAP. The FASB published U.S. GAAP in Extensible Business Reporting Language (XBRL) beginning in 2008. Sources of GAAP The FASB Accounting Standards Codification is the source of authoritative GAAP recognized by the FASB to be applied by nongovernmental entities. Rules and interpretive releases of the SEC under authority of federal securities laws are also sources of authoritative GAAP for SEC registrants. In addition to the SEC's rules and interpretive releases, the SEC staff issues Staff Accounting Bulletins that represent practices followed ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Evergrande
The China Evergrande Group is the second largest property developer in China by sales. It is ranked 122nd on the ''Fortune'' Global 500. It is incorporated in the Cayman Islands, a British Overseas Territory, and headquartered in the Houhai Financial Center in Nanshan District, Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China. It was founded in 1996 by Xu Jiayin. It sells apartments mostly to upper- and middle-income dwellers. In 2018, it became the most valuable real estate company in the world. In 2021, the payments Evergrande had to make on its debt started the 2020–2022 Chinese property sector crisis; Evergrande's total debts were estimated in the hundreds of billions of dollars. This was one of the reasons for a drop in many stock market indices on September 20, 2021. At the end of 2021, the Chinese government was reportedly working to restructure Evergrande in order to resolve the crisis. The group also sought a moratorium on the early repayment option on one of its yuan-deno ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Towers Financial Corporation
Towers Financial Corporation was a debt collection agency based in Manhattan.Allan Sloan (February 16, 1993)"THE SEC VS. STEVEN HOFFENBERG: A CASE OF LEANING FORTUNES AT TOWERS FINANCIAL?,"''The Washington Post''. Between 1988 and 1993, Towers Financial ran a Ponzi scheme that was the largest financial fraud in American history prior to Bernie Madoff's being uncovered. History The company, founded in the early 1970s in downtown Manhattan and incorporated in Delaware, was a debt collection agency that paid a penny on the dollar for loans that sellers viewed as worthless, focusing on debts that people owed to hospitals, banks, and phone companies. Steven Hoffenberg was its founder, CEO, President, and Chairman.Steven Jude Hoffenberg"GUARANTEED COLLECTION CORPORATION'S JOINT VENTURE WITH SOME THREE HUNDRED (300) SMALL COLLECTION AGENCIES; INTRODUCTION INTO THE MR. HOFFENBERG PAST OWNERSHIP OF TOWERS FINANCIAL CORPORATION HEREINAFTER, TFC, WHICH WAS DEPOSITING lk BILLION DOLLARS PER YEA ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Enron Scandal
The Enron scandal was an accounting scandal involving Enron Corporation, an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. Upon being publicized in October 2001, the company declared bankruptcy and its accounting firm, Arthur Andersen then one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world was effectively dissolved. In addition to being the largest bankruptcy reorganization in U.S. history at that time, Enron was cited as the biggest audit failure. Enron was formed in 1985 by Kenneth Lay after merging Houston Natural Gas and InterNorth. Several years later, when Jeffrey Skilling was hired, Lay developed a staff of executives that – by the use of accounting loopholes, special purpose entities, and poor financial reporting – were able to hide billions of dollars in debt from failed deals and projects. Chief Financial Officer Andrew Fastow and other executives misled Enron's board of directors and audit committee on high-risk accounting practices ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Subsidiary Company
A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a same management being substantially controlled by same entity/group are called sister companies. The subsidiary can be a company (usually with limited liability) and may be a government- or state-owned enterprise. They are a common feature of modern business life, and most multinational corporations organize their operations in this way. Examples of holding companies are Berkshire Hathaway, Jefferies Financial Group, The Walt Disney Company, Warner Bros. Discovery, or Citigroup; as well as more focused companies such as IBM, Xerox, and Microsoft. These, and others, organize their businesses into national and functional subsidiaries, often with multiple levels of subsidiaries. Details Subsidiaries are separate, distinct legal entities f ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Corporate Tax
A corporate tax, also called corporation tax or company tax, is a direct tax imposed on the income or capital of corporations or analogous legal entities. Many countries impose such taxes at the national level, and a similar tax may be imposed at state or local levels. The taxes may also be referred to as income tax or capital tax. A country's corporate tax may apply to: * corporations incorporated in the country, * corporations doing business in the country on income from that country, * foreign corporations who have a permanent establishment in the country, or * corporations deemed to be resident for tax purposes in the country. Company income subject to tax is often determined much like taxable income for individual taxpayers. Generally, the tax is imposed on net profits. In some jurisdictions, rules for taxing companies may differ significantly from rules for taxing individuals. Certain corporate acts or types of entities may be exempt from tax. The incidence of corpora ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Real Estate
Real estate is property consisting of land and the buildings on it, along with its natural resources such as crops, minerals or water; immovable property of this nature; an interest vested in this (also) an item of real property, (more generally) buildings or housing in general."Real estate": Oxford English Dictionary online: Retrieved September 18, 2011 In terms of law, ''real'' is in relation to land property and is different from personal property while ''estate'' means the "interest" a person has in that land property. Real estate is different from personal property, which is not permanently attached to the land, such as vehicles, boats, jewelry, furniture, tools and the rolling stock of a farm. In the United States, the transfer, owning, or acquisition of real estate can be through business corporations, individuals, nonprofit corporations, fiduciaries, or any legal entity as seen within the law of each U.S. state. History of real estate The natural right of a person ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Corporation
A corporation is an organization—usually a group of people or a company—authorized by the state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law "born out of statute"; a legal person in legal context) and recognized as such in law for certain purposes. Early incorporated entities were established by charter (i.e. by an '' ad hoc'' act granted by a monarch or passed by a parliament or legislature). Most jurisdictions now allow the creation of new corporations through List of company registers, registration. Corporations come in many different types but are usually divided by the law of the jurisdiction where they are chartered based on two aspects: by whether they can issue share capital, stock, or by whether they are formed to make a profit (accounting), profit. Depending on the number of owners, a corporation can be classified as ''aggregate'' (the subject of this article) or ''corporation sole, sole'' (a legal entity consisting of a sing ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Real Estate Investment Trust
A real estate investment trust (REIT) is a company that owns, and in most cases operates, income-producing real estate. REITs own many types of commercial real estate, including office and apartment buildings, warehouses, hospitals, shopping centers, hotels and commercial forests. Some REITs engage in financing real estate. Most countries' laws on REITs entitle a real estate company to pay less in corporation tax and capital gains tax. REITs have been criticised as enabling speculation on housing, and reducing housing affordability, without increasing finance for building. REITs can be publicly traded on major exchanges, publicly registered but non-listed, or private. The two main types of REITs are equity REITs and mortgage REITs (mREITs). In November 2014, equity REITs were recognized as a distinct asset class in the Global Industry Classification Standard by S&P Dow Jones Indices and MSCI. The key statistics to examine the financial position and operation of a REIT inc ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Securitisation
Securitization is the financial practice of pooling various types of contractual debt such as residential mortgages, commercial mortgages, auto loans or credit card debt obligations (or other non-debt assets which generate receivables) and selling their related cash flows to third party investors as securities, which may be described as bonds, pass-through securities, or collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Investors are repaid from the principal and interest cash flows collected from the underlying debt and redistributed through the capital structure of the new financing. Securities backed by mortgage receivables are called mortgage-backed securities (MBS), while those backed by other types of receivables are asset-backed securities (ABS). The granularity of pools of securitized assets can mitigate the credit risk of individual borrowers. Unlike general corporate debt, the credit quality of securitized debt is non- stationary due to changes in volatility that are time- and stru ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |