Months after the auction rate securities (ARS) market collapsed following a broker-dealer pullout, investors across the United States are still waiting for liquidity to return to investments they once thought were safe places to park their funds. Though some issuers of municipal bonds have made efforts to refinance their debt, holders of student loan backed auction rate securities have only a 99% auction failure rate to look forward to.

The story of the ARS market collapse, like many others involving the finance industry, is one mired in conflict of interest.

For much of the ARS market’s history, broker-dealers like UBS, Merrill Lynch, and Lehman Brothers had “shored up” their auctions by submitting bids on their own behalf. These bids ‘of last resort’ provided extra demand for auction rate stocks and bonds, ensuring that there was a buyer for all shares exposed for sale at auction. For years, this practice appeared immensely successful; the market thrived and investors were attracted by the liquidity of the ARS system.

But by late 2007, major investment firms and broker-dealers were well aware that the ARS market bubble was about to burst, as internal e-mails and reports to state governments show. This was a serious concern to broker-dealers, many of whom had accumulated billions of dollars in auction rate paper. These concerns were swiftly conveyed to several state governments, encouraging municipal borrowers to refinance their debt – a gesture not of broker-dealer goodwill, but of self-interested survival, as evidenced by the fact that such a warning was never given to the countless investors who also held ARS.

However, even such a move was not enough to satisfy executives at major financial institutions; they needed some way to quickly unload ARS that they knew were doomed. But who in their right mind would want to purchase the securities in the months before a market crash?

Faced with a conflict of interest between preserving immediate profits and ensuring the well-being of their customers, broker-dealers predictably chose to save their own money. Though they knew that auction rate securities were soon to become illiquid, they aggressively marketed the securities to unsuspecting investors as “safe, liquid, cash-equivalent” investments.

What investors didn’t know:

- The securities they were purchasing were held by broker-dealers who were eager to unload paper whose value and liquidity were due for a fall.

- The liquidity of the ARS market was dependent on the same broker-dealers who were trying hard to exit the market.

For more information about the ongoing auction rate securities crisis, visit the website of ARS lawyers at http://www.auctionratesecuritieslawsuit.com.

Joseph Devine