Harrison Fiduciary

Dark pools remind me of revenue sharing.  Not much good can come from business practices or products with descriptive titles of this nature.

Whereas an avalanche of class action litigation has shed light on the practice known as revenue-sharing, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, Barclays Faces New York Lawsuit Over Dark Pool and High-Frequency Trading, has focused the spot light on dark pools by filing a law suit against Barclays over its private stock trading platform… otherwise known as dark pools.

The law suit essentially claims that certain high-frequency traders were favored over other participants in the pool and that various practices were not properly disclosed.

Many of the other banks and financial services firms run similar “platforms”, so the entire financial industry has a stake in the litigation.  Schneiderman is not the only regulator involved, the SEC, charged with maintaining integrity in the financial markets, is also a key player.

And so … here goes another financial services industry free-for-all.   Mind you, these dark pools are big revenue producers, so the stakes are high.

The issues are serious and complex for Wall Street, however, I am much more interested in the fiduciary issues at stake.

Make no mistake about it, plan fiduciaries have oversight responsibility for the trading of securities held by the plan.  At a minimum, the trading practices must be reasonable, prudent and, generally, managers are required to seek “best execution.”  And, of course, this analysis must includes a review of trading costs and expenses.

The challenge and tension revolves around the fact that fiduciaries require transparency, whereas the name dark pools suggests the opposite — opacity.

At the outset, Fiduciaries need to determine whether plan assets were traded through these dark pools.  If the answer is yes, then a whole series of questions follow:

Did the plan assets get best execution?

Are other pool participants advantaged over the plan assets?

What fees are charged for trading in the pools?

Are these fees reasonable?

Are the fiduciaries assured that trading via the pools did not constitute a prohibited transaction?

How are pool operators compensated?

Are there any conflicts of interest?

Has the fiduciary been monitoring these trading practices on a regular basis?

This is merely an initial list of questions.  But, posing the questions is the easy part.  Understanding the answers is far more challenging.  In my many years of serving as the General Counsel of a global investment management firm, no area was more confusing or harder to get my arms around than the issues related to the trading desk.  Traders use a lingo and jargon that is all their own.  Sometimes getting satisfactory answers in this area requires the best of prosecutorial skills.  It can be tough going.

If they haven’t already, Fiduciaries are best advised that they begin asking these questions.  If they do not, certainly class action lawyers and the Department of Labor, most certainly will.

Continue Reading

Is it a Good Deal?

Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs) present an attractive financing tool and ownership structure for both publicly and privately held businesses.

ESOPs can be very complex.  There are many moving parts.

Lawyers, investment bankers, consultants and other advisors love complexity.  In fact, professionals often thrive on complexity.  Somehow complexity conveys an aura of expertise, and of course, expertise demands high fees.

However, the structuring of an ESOP and the decision-making process undertaken by the various stakeholders (plan sponsors, plan fiduciaries, advisors, etc.) should not overlook very simple questions:  “Is this a good deal?”  “Do the economics work?”.

In transactions of this nature, there is lots of pressure to “get the deal done.”  Pressure by selling shareholders and pressure by the bankers can all be significant.  But, it is a fiduciary’s job to ask the simple questions.

In Fish v. GreatBanc, a recent decision by the Seventh Circuit, the Court outlines what amounted to a bad business deal.  Although the precise issue decided by the Court focused on the application of the relevant statute of limitations, the underlying business deal was not pretty.

As noted by the Court, and repeated by other bloggers, Steve Rosenberg, What Happens to Company Owners Who Get Overaggressive When Selling out to an ESOP?, outsider advisors to the independent fiduciaries characterized the transaction as “the most aggressive deal structure in the history of ESOPs.”

Wow.  When an advisor puts that warning in writing it is best to pay attention.  (Remember, it will be part of the record if the deal heads south.)

While many lawyers have commented on the legal issues, I’d like to provide a practical perspective, as an Independent Fiduciary.

At the outset, it is important to note that “aggressive” –taken by itself — is not necessarily a negative or a bad thing.

Many “aggressive” investments may still be prudent. But, in the parlance of modern portfolio theory, an aggressive, or high-risk investment, must be compensated for by a higher rate of return.  High risk.  High Return.

In addition, the risk of an investment must be assessed in the context of the composition of an entire investment portfolio.  High risk investments must be balanced with lower risk investment so that the overall portfolio reflects an appropriate risk level.

ESOPs present a unique challenge when it comes to risk.  That is, the company stock held by the ESOP is the sole asset held by the plan (other than some cash).

In the context of Fish, once the deal was characterized as “aggressive”, it was then the fiduciary’s responsibility to dig in.  What gives rise to the nature of the aggressive nature of the deal?  Are there ways to mitigate the aggressiveness?  Can the plan be adequately compensated for the risk inherent in the transaction?

This analysis must be a collaborate effort, undertaken by the fiduciary, the plan sponsor, and the selling shareholders.  The analysis is not intended to kill the deal.  To the contrary, the analysis is designed to enhance the deal, to afford protections to everyone involved, not the least of whom are the plan participants who must get a fair deal.

ESOPs can be very compelling structures for all stakeholders:  owners, plans and plan sponsors.  However, it is the fiduciary’s responsibilities to make sure that the risks and rewards are prudently shared.

As an Independent Fiduciary, it is my job to exercise discretion as a “prudent expert”.  While prudence includes following various processes and procedures, it also demands me to ask, “Is this a good deal for the plan?”   Financial advisors and investment bankers, it is your job to persuade me that, in fact, it is a good deal.

Continue Reading