Opportunity to Rid Your Estate of Illiquid Assets

According to Larry Light, Auction-Rate Yard Sale, WSJ, Aug. 22, 2009, “[g]etting into auction-rate securities, mortgage-backed bonds and hedge funds was a lot easier for investors than getting out. Such investments became illiquid in the financial crisis, and can be almost impossible to unload through regular markets.”

But, the article goes on to discuss a number of firms who are thriving on this market by matching “investors and the firms’ own rosters of buyers eager to snap up illiquid assets at bargain prices” so that “[h]olders can get back anywhere from a few cents on the dollar for the most poisonous mortgage-backed securities to 90 cents for the best auction-rate securities.”

For more information on these firms, see Larry Light, Auction-Rate Yard Sale, WSJ, Aug. 22, 2009.

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.