What funny times in which we live; an observation perhaps highly dependent upon your notion of fun.  Maybe curious is the better description.  Daunting?  Frightening?  Opaque and unknowable?  All probably good descriptions.  True of politics.  True of business. 

Sticking to business, it’s hard to get conviction around anything right now.  Nonetheless, we must.  Everyone needs

It’s Golden Turkey Awards Time, Folks!

Our Turkeys are a little late this year but hey, we’ve been busy worrying about the collapse of the world’s economy.  This is the 10th edition of our Turkeys and much thanks to our disorderly, often dysfunctional, regularly inscrutable and absurd government, polity and marketplace for continuing to

The New Year is already proving to be a busy one. A new Congress, new COVID-19 strains and vaccine promises, and a new stimulus package making its way to American citizens and businesses. The Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2021 was signed into law just before the New Year. And while the $600 checks being sent directly to the American people and the extension of additional unemployment benefits seems to have captured the national attention, the $900 billion relief package will provide support to much more than the personal pocketbook.
Continue Reading Highlights Of The Latest COVID-19 Relief Bill

So, once again, time for Dechert’s acclaimed (at least by us) Annual Golden Turkey Awards.  It is rather a difficult time for comedy; we are in the throes of a completely unfunny pandemic.  Sitting down to finalize this year’s list gave me some sympathy for our late-night talk show hosts who are very publicly pining over the end of the Trump administration and trying to find humor in the anticipated Biden administration, where the watchword is “dull is cool.”  But perhaps looking for inanity and making gentle fun of it might even be more important in tough times than good.  So, with that in mind, we went digging for gems in 2020.  Nothing seems quite so risible as in past years, but here’s the best of a bad lot:Continue Reading 2020 Golden Turkey Awards

I am trying to figure out how much I care, as a businessman (as opposed to an actual living, breathing human being), about the chaos swirling around us.  Every day’s news seems more the stuff of a dramatic conceit of someone’s next thriller than reality.  Throw in a car chase and some sex, and we’ve got a movie.  (The North Carolina sexting scandal doesn’t really get us there for this purpose.)
Continue Reading Inflection Point? How Much Change Are We Really Facing?

While it seems like the COVID pandemic has taken over every waking moment of our lives, the impending end of LIBOR marches ever onward.  All signs point to a termination date for the troubled benchmarks at the end of 2021, pandemic be damned.

The purpose of this post is not to discuss the road to transition so far, though if you’d like to take a trip down memory lane, here is what we have seen. Instead, we wanted to bring your attention to the fact that, whilst the UK Financial Conduct Authority’s (FCA) momentum continues, COVID has created some bumps in the road, even on the journey to the end of LIBOR.Continue Reading LIBOR – The UK Beat Goes On

Last Friday, Law360 published its interview with Crunched Credit’s own Rick Jones as part of its Coronavirus Q&A series. In his interview, Rick discusses the effects COVID-19 has had on the commercial mortgage-backed securities market, reflects on how the current financial climate compares to that of the Great Recession, and contemplates the future of capital

COVID-19 has driven anxiety over the LIBOR transition right off almost everyone’s top-of-mind list and yet the crisis is taking no notice of that lack of regard and soldiering on.  The ARRC continues to beaver away, generating guidance and advice and otherwise proselytizing the need to get on with it and be ready for transition on January 1, 2022.

But are the markets listening?  Look at our ardor!  Except for special situations, the use of SOFR, to date, has been a political and not an economic decision for those who have elected to use it.  There is little take-up in the real world and little enthusiasm for doing so.  And what’s with the huge whoops a few weeks ago when SOFR’s March to the Sea was interrupted when the Fed backed off using SOFR in the Fed’s new $6 billion aid program for small and mid-size businesses?  Run away! Run away!  Back to LIBOR!Continue Reading LIBOR: The Monty Python Parrot of Finance