Skip to main content

Seminar: Financial Risk Management: A Brief Overview

Date: 14th January, 2011

Speaker: Dr. Puneet Prakash

About the speaker:

Dr. Puneet Prakash is an Assistant professor at Virginia Commonwealth University since 2005. He holds a Ph.D in Risk Management and Insurance from Georgia State University, an MBA from IIFT, Delhi, PG Diploma in Development Policy (IGIDR), and M.Sc. (5-year Integrated) from IIT, Kanpur. He is also a visiting faculty to IIT Kanpur, Fall 2009.

Abstract of the talk:
The seminar started with a brief discussion on market and the categorization of market participants into risk averse, risk neutral and risk seeking behaviors. Dr. Prakash then proceeded to discuss the Modigliani – Miller theorem that Corporations are risk neutral and that if investors want to manage risk they could do it as an individual rather than through the company. The underlying assumption is that a company and a individual have the same capability to manage risk. As this assumption is not a universal truth, not all corporations are risk neutral. Any discussion on risk management invariably involves Jensen’s inequality and this seminar was no exception to this. Dr. Prakash explained in brief Jensen’s inequality for the benefit of the audience which had some undergraduates apart from the usual MBA students.

The concepts of hedging the risk, risk premium and insurance were then dealt with. Dr. Prakash then proceeded to answer when corporations manage risk and their value functions. He also touched upon locating the expected bankruptcy point and expected bankruptcy costs. To ensure that the mixed audience carried his point home he interspersed theory with real life experiences, examples and analogies. Dr. Prakash then explained what is known as integrated risk management. He then mentioned the categorization of risk into operational (business) and financial. The fundamental generic risk management matrix was next on his agenda. This was followed by a small brief on how to practice ERM (Enterprise Risk Management) and what are the origins of financial risk.

The process of financial risk management was then taken up. Dr. Prakash then described various properties of risk viz. coherence, monotonicity positive homogeneity and sub-additivity. He then went on to elaborate on how to compute value at risk given the distribution of return. What followed this macro level discussion was a micro level mathematical model for financial risk management. Financial risk was broken down into market risk, default/credit risk, interest rate risk and liquidity risk. He then discussed generalized extreme value distribution (Fetcher Distribution) which is also known as limit theorem for extreme values) an then he explained how short selling could take a firm from inefficient to efficient part of risk return curve. The informative two hour talk concluded with capital asset pricing model.

Prepared By:
Atul Mishra(matul@iitk.ac.in)

Published By:
PR & Media Cell, MBA-IIT Kanpur (prmba@iitk.ac.in)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Consilium'08: The Consulting Conclave

MBA batch under the aegis of Department of IME is going to organize the annual consulting conclave of IIT Kanpur, Consilium’08. The objective of this event is to create a platform where confluence of leading professionals from consultancy and vast student community can take place. As consultancy has become one of the most preferred career choice for IITians , Consilium'08 will provide them the opportunity to learn about the nunaces of consultancy in various domains. From a humble start, it has been envisaged that Consilium will become the platform in coming years where representatives from across the spectrum of consultancy will share their knowledge, experience and insight with students. The event has generated enthusiasm among all sections of IITK students and students from other major B-Schools who are also expected to participate. Case solving competition is one of the attraction of Consilium '08 in which winners shall get certificates and attractive cash prizes. Apart...

THE HIGH OCTANE RIDE: FRESHERS NIGHT ‘12

“Dance like nobody's watching, Love like you've never been hurt, Sing like nobody's listening, Live like it's heaven on earth”  -Mark Twain An apt quote to describe the sumptuous freshers' party for the MBA batch of 2012-14, organised by the seniors on 17 th August, 2012. As with all freshers' parties, the gist of this night was to make every Y’14 MBA student feel like being an integral part of the IIT-K family, younger and ever new to take the challenge of the years ahead, ever fresh through the year and carrying the legacy ahead. The proceedings started as early as 7pm, as all the students geared up for an evening of fun, enjoyment and relaxation. After ambiguity, predicament and lots of discussions over what to wear for the occasion, almost everyone reached the venue for the night, old SAC ground, by 7.15pm where the party finally began at around 7.45pm. The event, compered by Sagar and Kanwardeep, kicked off with the Y’14 students being called on ...

A Talk on Project Management and Strategic Planning

A guest lecture was delivered by Mr. Aditya Kumar, Solution Transformation Leader, Schneider Electric on 11th Jan, 2013. He has specialized in Project Planning, Contract & Risk Management, Turnkey Projects, Business Processes, Energy Management, Building Project organization and thus his talk was focused on these aspects. He discussed that how the strategy and project management go hand in hand. Just as strategies and ideas lead to new projects, similarly, project results drive changes and give rise to new strategies and innovations. He explained that a project is a venture undertaken to produce a product or service. Project management is the discipline of planning, organizing, procuring and managing resources to bring about the successful completion of project by the application of skills, knowledge, tools and techniques and meet the need and expectations of all the parties who are directly or indirectly interested in the project. The main challenge with project management is to...