CFA Practice Question

CFA Practice Question

Omega Prime Securities is a sizable investment bank that undertakes security issuances on behalf of small and medium size businesses. Treffil Ellis is the senior vice president of corporate finance at Omega. Treffil, on one of his golf junkets, made acquaintance with Tralth Trevor, owner of a growing chain of resort hotels. Tralth invites Treffil to his estate mansion the next day and over drinks, asks him how fast Omega could issue equity linked callable notes to finance the $200 million construction of new hotel businesses in Cairo and Bali. He forthrightly tells him that Omega could receive as much as 150 basis points above the normal fee if the issuance could be completed within the month. Treffil knows that this is not enough time to complete a research on Tralth's business and determine the issue price. However, he does know that his research wing could quickly do a comparison with one of the other hotel chains and determine an approximate issue price. He instructs his department to do so. In a month, the public offering is ready for issuance and Omega ends up making almost $15 million more than on other similar business deals. Treffil receives commendation from the CEO for "going beyond the call of duty for his employer."

Treffil has:
I. violated Standard III (B) Fair Dealing.
II. not violated any code of ethics.
III. violated Standard V (A) Diligence and Reasonable Basis.
IV. violated Standard III (A) Loyalty, Prudence, and Care.
A. III and IV only.
B. I, II and III.
C. III only.
Explanation: If adequate research is not put into determining the fair price of a security issue, investors could end up paying a price that has no relevance to the intrinsic value of the security. This is in direct violation of Standard V (A) - Diligence and Reasonable Basis.

User Contributed Comments 9

User Comment
mtcfa Shouldn't IV also be included, as the analyst is not putting the client's interest first, but rather his firm's?
ontrack No. he is not a portfolio manager but a corporate finance VP, and he has no clients to take care of. He should be loyal to his employer.
Birdy101 thought so too, maybe b/c as they only do IPO's they don t have investment clients...
prajacti but what if more diligent research could have raised the issue price? it could have got the client a better deal so is IIIA not being violated?
pepper yes he has a client. Corporate finance Department is responsible for IPO,
Kathkun The client here is Tralth.
Treffil had a duty of loyalty to his client, but acted in a way that placed his own interests above the client.
Hence I believe IV is right.
dipu617 Can't agree with the answer. "A" should be correct. Only 19 days left for the final exams. These questions are downgrading my confidence level.... :-(
Mikehuynh No mention of clients so cannot be A. C is the best regarding all the info in the question.
harrybay Question 2 didn't mention any compensation but we still had to assume there was one.
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