Re:Tether Withdrawals Top $10B
by nradov on Tuesday May 24, 2022 @02:08PM
(#31495509)
Yes that's basically how it works. When a corporation holds a loan as an asset on their balance sheet, they're supposed to mark that asset to market reflecting the risk of default. But if marking to market isn't actually enforced by auditors or regulators then the company can pretend that the asset value is the same as face value. This can appear to work for years until there's a recession and a bunch of borrowers default.
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Ah, that makes sense. I'm curious though, how would auditors ensure the asset is marked to reflect the risk? If one organization thinks the risk is substantually lower than another, what do they mark? Or is there generally enough arbitrage that this doesn't happen.
Well it depends on the asset. If it's regular corporate bonds that are being actively traded on an open market (liquid) then just use a recent market price. If there's no market then valuation becomes highly subjective. If the borrower has some kind of credit rating from a trusted rating agency then that can be used as proxy for default risk. Or if the borrower is publicly traded and releases audited financial statements then you can estimate based on those. But if you don't have any of that then pick a number and try to get the auditors to swallow it.