March 1 Meeting on Avian Flu Contingency
The Bond Market Association's Avian Flu Task Force has asked whether the Association's Technology Committee might consider providing guidance regarding the question of how bond market and other professionals in the global securities industry would communicate with each other, to help keep the financial markets open, in the event of a flu pandemic or similar crisis.
The question being raised with TBMA's Technology Committee is whether the Committee would be able to offer recommendations concerning a proposed data base of industry contact information which could be continuously updated by sell side and buy side firms and others to let select customers, counterparties and competitors know where and how to reach these firms and their "working from home" representatives.
Dexter Senft of Lehman Brothers, who is Chair of the Technology Committee, explained that Lehman Brothers has developed a simple prototype of the kind of technology that might be employed, and was willing to demonstrate it to a broad audience as a means of progressing discussions. Accordingly, representatives of the major TBMA member firms are invited to a demonstration and discussion. This meeting will be held on March 1st beginning at 2:00 p.m. at the offices of Lehman Brothers in New York City. (The prototype technology currently runs only on Lehman's network.) Please contact Joseph Sack at 646.637.9265 for additional details on this meeting.
LSTA and Asset Managers to Discuss Bank Loans
One of the goals of the Asset Managers Division is to complement the essential work of other trade groups. Accordingly, the AMD is pleased to announce that Allison Taylor, Executive Director of LSTA, will offer an overview of LSTA's activities during a special breakout session of the AMF's Quarterly Business Meeting in New York City on February 15, 2006. During this session, the LSTA and several asset managers affiliated with both AMD and AMF member firms will discuss some of the issues and challenges that buy side operations professionals face in processing these instruments. At the meeting, operations professionals will also identify the areas in which asset managers need further education by LSTA and how the AMF can be helpful to the LSTA as it focuses more on operations matters. Asset managers industry leaders Philip Blake of BlackRock and Gary Nussenbaum and Evan Murray of Prudential Investment Management will lead the discussion.
Please contact Douglas Taggart at 646.637.9200 for more information relating to the above matters or to participate in the dialogue.
Click here to view the Bank Loan discussion agenda
The Asset Managers Division thanks the leadership of LSTA and AMF for organizing this meeting of buy side operations professionals. The AMF is an important group associated with the Division insofar as it provides the Division with a foundation in operations, which in many instances tends to validate the Asset Managers Division's advocacy positions.