Hedge Fund Humor

  • Posted by
  • on August 16th, 2007

A classic spoof. Hat Tip – Dealbreaker :

Got this classic e-mail as well spoofing CDO’s:

Investment Market Performance Specialists (IMPS) are excited to announce the newest structured finance product – Constant Obligation
Leveraged Originated Structured Oscillating Money Bridged Asset Guarantees, or COLOSTOMY BAGS. Designed to accommodate the most sophisticated investment strategies, Colostomy Bags contain the equity tranches of Structured High Interest Taxable
Derivatives, or SH IT, and are leveraged an infinite amount of times through the innovative use of derivatives. “Its an actively managed, unlimited liability, open ended investment with no maturity date, which pays LIBOR plus 5,000 and has no correlation to traditional investments” said a spokesman for the IMPS who engineered the product. “It’s based on a CDO structure, but it’s designed to default BEFORE the first coupon payment, which you’ll agree has no correlation with stodgy traditional investments and is a perfect fit for portable alpha scams, er, strategies.” Following the default, each month more leverage is added to the structure to pay for the coupon and the Dealer’s fees which are set at 80%.

“We feel the fees are reasonable, given the adrenaline rush you’ll get each month attempting to mark these.”

The Colostomy Bags carry a AAAA rating, based on the rating agencies opinion that they are even safer than Treasuries. “You can’t use traditional credit analysis to value these babies, no sir-ree” said a spokesman for a rating agency. “Just like Icelandic Banks, we
give them the highest rating because you just know that the Fed will bail out all the hedgies who buy these things..remember like Long Term Capital? And the best part is, the beauty of this structure is that the loss given default is NEGATIVE, so by extension
we feel that the CDS will trade through Treasuries.”

Inhaling deeply on a fatty, he continued “We’ve been tinkering with our model, which served us well for Enron and the Telecoms in ’02, and our stress testing shows that the probability of loss in the senior tranche is close to zero.”

The model, constructed of a wishing well, Joseph Jett’s trading blotter, and drawings of Unicorns then collapsed in a heap. “Well, back to the drawing board!” he cackled. A real money investor, huddled on the windowsill outside his office, said he remained optimistic about holding the Colostomy Bags but was a bit concerned with the 95% decline in value on the first day they traded.

Have a good one.

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