Tobashi Scheme
A tobashi scheme is a financial fraud through creative accounting where a client's losses are hidden by an investment firm by shifting them between the portfolios of other (genuine or fake) clients. Any real client with portfolio losses can therefore have their accounts flattered by this process. This cycling cannot continue indefinitely and so the investment firm itself ends up picking up the cost. As it is ultimately expensive there must be a strong incentive for the investment firm to pursue this activity on behalf of their clients. Etymology ''Tobashi'' ( ja, 飛ばし) is Japanese for "flying away". It describes the practice where external investment firms typically sell or otherwise take loss-bearing investments off the books of one client company at their near-cost valuation to conceal investment losses from the clients' financial statements. In that sense, the losses are made to disappear, or 'fly away'. Structure The scheme often makes use of off-balance sheet fina ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Financial Fraud
In law, fraud is intent (law), intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate Civil law (common law), civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensation) or criminal law (e.g., a fraud perpetrator may be prosecuted and imprisoned by governmental authorities), or it may cause no loss of money, property, or legal right but still be an element of another civil or criminal wrong. The purpose of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits, for example by obtaining a passport, travel document, or driver's license, or mortgage fraud, where the perpetrator may attempt to qualify for a mortgage by way of false statements. Internal fraud, also known as "insider fraud", is fraud committed or attempted by someone within an organisation such as an employee. A hoax is a distinct concept that involves deliberate deception without the intention of gain or of mat ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Yamaichi Securities
was a Japanese securities trading firm. The company announced it would cease operations on November 24, 1997 and was declared bankrupt by the Tokyo District Court on June 2, 1999. History Yamaichi, formed in 1897, was at one time one of the four major Japanese brokerages. Its clients were major Japanese corporations. In the boom of the 1980s it was given specified sums of money by 10 of its clients to invest as it saw fit. A sharp downturn in the early 1990s and poor dealings by Yamaichi generated losses of more than 200 billion yen. Fearing the demise of the firm through loss of reputation that would result if the scale of losses became known, the brokerage shouldered the loss of its clients, and moved it off balance sheet. Yamaichi sold in a private placement Touchwood Pacific Partners limited partnership to about 50 Japanese institutional or private investors in the amount of $191 million in 1990 for The Walt Disney Company film production. ''Tobashi'' and collapse In ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Fraud
In law, fraud is intentional deception to secure unfair or unlawful gain, or to deprive a victim of a legal right. Fraud can violate civil law (e.g., a fraud victim may sue the fraud perpetrator to avoid the fraud or recover monetary compensation) or criminal law (e.g., a fraud perpetrator may be prosecuted and imprisoned by governmental authorities), or it may cause no loss of money, property, or legal right but still be an element of another civil or criminal wrong. The purpose of fraud may be monetary gain or other benefits, for example by obtaining a passport, travel document, or driver's license, or mortgage fraud, where the perpetrator may attempt to qualify for a mortgage by way of false statements. Internal fraud, also known as "insider fraud", is fraud committed or attempted by someone within an organisation such as an employee. A hoax is a distinct concept that involves deliberate deception without the intention of gain or of materially damaging or depriving a vi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Creative Accounting
Creative accounting is a euphemism referring to accounting practices that may follow the letter of the rules of standard accounting practices, but deviate from the spirit of those rules with questionable accounting ethics—specifically distorting results in favor of the "preparers", or the firm that hired the accountant. They are characterized by excessive complication and the use of novel ways of characterizing income, assets, or liabilities, and the intent to influence readers towards the interpretations desired by the authors. The terms "innovative" or "aggressive" are also sometimes used. Another common synonym is "cooking the books". Creative accounting is oftentimes used in tandem with outright financial fraud (including securities fraud), and lines between the two are blurred. Creative accounting practices are known since ancient times and appear world-wide in various forms. The term as generally understood refers to systematic misrepresentation of the true income and asse ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Repurchase Agreement
A repurchase agreement, also known as a repo, RP, or sale and repurchase agreement, is a form of short-term borrowing, mainly in government securities. The dealer sells the underlying security to investors and, by agreement between the two parties, buys them back shortly afterwards, usually the following day, at a slightly higher price. The repo market is an important source of funds for large financial institutions in the non-depository banking sector, which has grown to rival the traditional depository banking sector in size. Large institutional investors such as money market mutual funds lend money to financial institutions such as investment banks, either in exchange for (or secured by) collateral, such as Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed securities held by the borrower financial institutions. An estimated $1 trillion per day in collateral value is transacted in the U.S. repo markets. In 2007–2008, a run on the repo market, in which funding for investment banks was ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lehman Brothers
Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. ( ) was an American global financial services firm founded in 1847. Before Bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, filing for bankruptcy in 2008, Lehman was the fourth-largest investment bank in the United States (behind Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and Merrill (company), Merrill Lynch), with about 25,000 employees worldwide. It was doing business in investment banking, Stock, equity, Bond (finance), fixed-income and Derivative (finance), derivatives sales and stock trading, trading (especially U.S. Treasury securities), research, investment management, private equity, and private banking. Lehman was operational for 158 years from its founding in 1850 until 2008. On September 15, 2008, Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11, Title 11, United States Code, Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection following the exodus of most of its clients, drastic declines in its stock price, and the devaluation of assets by credit rating agencies. The collapse was largely due to Lehm ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Repo 105
Repo 105 is Lehman Brothers' name for an accounting maneuver that it used where a short-term repurchase agreement is classified as a sale. The cash obtained through this "sale" is then used to pay down debt, allowing the company to appear to reduce its leverage by temporarily paying down liabilities—just long enough to reflect on the company's published balance sheet. After the company's financial reports are published, the company borrows cash and repurchases its original assets. Use by Lehman Brothers Repo 105 was used by investment bank Lehman Brothers three times according to a March 2010 report by the bankruptcy court examiner. The report stated that Lehman's auditors, Ernst & Young, were aware of this questionable classification. Law firm Linklaters has received unfavorable press treatment in relation to their issuance of an English law opinion which characterised the arrangements as a ''true sale'' as opposed to a transfer by Lehman with a charge back in favour of the tr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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The Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published six days a week by Dow Jones & Company, a division of News Corp. The newspaper is published in the broadsheet format and online. The ''Journal'' has been printed continuously since its inception on July 8, 1889, by Charles Dow, Edward Jones, and Charles Bergstresser. The ''Journal'' is regarded as a newspaper of record, particularly in terms of business and financial news. The newspaper has won 38 Pulitzer Prizes, the most recent in 2019. ''The Wall Street Journal'' is one of the largest newspapers in the United States by circulation, with a circulation of about 2.834million copies (including nearly 1,829,000 digital sales) compared with ''USA Today''s 1.7million. The ''Journal'' publishes the luxury news and lifestyle magazine ' ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Olympus Corporation
is a Japanese manufacturer of optics and reprography products. Olympus was established on 12 October 1919, initially specializing in microscopes and thermometers. Olympus holds roughly a 70-percent share of the global endoscope market, estimated to be worth approximately US$2.5 billion. Its global headquarters are located in Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan. In 2011, Olympus attracted worldwide media scrutiny when it fired its CEO and the matter snowballed into a corporate corruption investigation with multiple arrests. It paid $646 million in kickback fines in 2016. Products Cameras and audio In 1936, Olympus introduced its first camera, the Semi-Olympus I, fitted with the first Zuiko-branded lens. The Olympus Chrome Six was a series of folding cameras made by Takachiho, and later Olympus, from 1948 to 1956, for 6×4.5 cm or 6×6 cm exposures on 120 film. The first innovative camera series from Olympus was the Pen, launched in 1959. It used a half-frame format, t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Bond (finance)
In finance, a bond is a type of security under which the issuer ( debtor) owes the holder ( creditor) a debt, and is obliged – depending on the terms – to repay the principal (i.e. amount borrowed) of the bond at the maturity date as well as interest (called the coupon) over a specified amount of time. The interest is usually payable at fixed intervals: semiannual, annual, and less often at other periods. Thus, a bond is a form of loan or IOU. Bonds provide the borrower with external funds to finance long-term investments or, in the case of government bonds, to finance current expenditure. Bonds and stocks are both securities, but the major difference between the two is that (capital) stockholders have an equity stake in a company (i.e. they are owners), whereas bondholders have a creditor stake in a company (i.e. they are lenders). As creditors, bondholders have priority over stockholders. This means they will be repaid in advance of stockholders, but will rank behind s ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Government Bonds
A government bond or sovereign bond is a form of bond issued by a government to support public spending. It generally includes a commitment to pay periodic interest, called coupon payments'','' and to repay the face value on the maturity date. For example, a bondholder invests $20,000, called face value or principal, into a 10-year government bond with a 10% annual coupon; the government would pay the bondholder 10% interest each year and repay the $20,000 original face value at the date of maturity (i.e. after 10 years). Government bonds can be denominated in a foreign currency or the government's domestic currency. Countries with less stable economies tend to denominate their bonds in the currency of a country with a more stable economy (i.e. a hard currency). When governments with less stable economies issue bonds, there is a possibility they will be unable to repay bondholders, resulting in a default. All bonds carry a default risk. International credit rating agencies p ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Credit Suisse
Credit Suisse Group AG is a global investment bank and financial services firm founded and based in Switzerland. Headquartered in Zürich, it maintains offices in all major financial centers around the world and is one of the nine global " Bulge Bracket" banks providing services in investment banking, private banking, asset management, and shared services. It is known for strict bank–client confidentiality and banking secrecy. The Financial Stability Board considers it to be a global systemically important bank. Credit Suisse is also primary dealer and Forex counterparty of the Fed. Credit Suisse was founded in 1856 to fund the development of Switzerland's rail system. It issued loans that helped create Switzerland's electrical grid and the European rail system. In the 1900s, it began shifting to retail banking in response to the elevation of the middle class and competition from fellow Swiss banks UBS and Julius Bär. Credit Suisse partnered with First Boston in ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |