About

About the Firm

Advanced Securities Consulting was founded in 2006 by Edmon (Ed) Blount. Ed formed ASC after three decades working in the securities markets to meet a demand for rigorous qualitative analysis of financial transactions, supported by statistical and quantitative methods. ASC applies a depth of practical knowledge and experience in areas like securities lending and finance, corporate governance, risk management, and elsewhere in combination with a “deep dive” into the underlying data to provide meaningful and well-supported advice and conclusions. In addition to assisting institutional investors, brokerage firms, and financial and other firms directly, ASC collaborates with legal teams, economic analysis firms, government agencies, academics, and others to provide in-depth expert assessments and forensic data analysis.

Ed has assembled a team of highly educated and experienced experts and staff giving Advanced Securities Consulting a “deep bench” on which to draw. Our consultants and experts are highly collaborative, responsive, and trained to provide thoughtful and creative solutions to the most difficult questions.

The Management Team

Ed Blount serves as an advisor to financial regulators and trade associations on capital markets issues, as well as a consultant to law firms on securities litigation matters. Blount has worked in the securities markets for 35 years, first with Citibank, Bankers Trust, and ASTEC Consulting. He is now Executive Director of the Center for Study of Financial Market Evolution (CSFME), a non-profit research group he founded in 2006, and President of Advanced Securities Consulting, LLC. Both firms are based in Washington, D.C.

In March 2011, the U.S. Senate invited Ed Blount to testify as the only independent witness for the securities lending community during a hearing before the Special Committee on Aging. In September 2009, Blount testified on similar subjects before the Chairman and Commissioners of the SEC.

Blount’s paper on the collapse of Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, “Liability Dynamics: A New Framework for Counterparty Risk Management?”, was published in the March, 2009 issue of the Risk Management Association (RMA) Journal. In April, 2007, he presented "The Impact of Short Sales and Securities Lending on Capital Market Portfolios: 1990 through 2006," at the IMF-World Bank conference in Moscow, Russia. In 2006, Blount co-authored "Managing Liquidity Risks in Cash-based Lending Programs," in Securities Finance: Lending and Repurchase Agreements, edited by Frank Fabozzi and published by Wiley.

The CSFME’s investigative report, “Borrowed Proxy Abuse: Real or Not?”, was presented to the SEC in October 2010. It reported the results of CSFME’s analysis of over one billion loan records from eight banks, averaging $2 trillion annually -- or 90% of all U.S. securities loans from 2005 through 2008. CSFME consulted with the Risk Management Association and Securities Industry Financial Markets Association to test the allegations of widespread proxy abuse that had been published by academic researchers in 2005.

Since 1980, Ed Blount has been a writer and contributing editor of the ABA Banking Journal of the American Bankers Association. In many published articles, Blount has conducted in-depth interviews with senior officials of the SEC, Federal Reserve Board of Governors, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Bank for International Settlements, Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, European Commission, European Central Bank and the Swiss Private Bankers Association.

In 1992, one of Blount’s prior firms was the first investment consultancy to benchmark securities lending programs, by forming a research cooperative that grew to more than 250 institutional investors, 30 bank agents and 50 broker-dealers. Blount introduced Lending Pit as the first pricing service for securities loans on the Internet in 2004. By 2007, when Blount sold the business to a Fortune 500 company, traders were receiving daily borrowing rates on over 90,000 securities.

A former U.S. Marine Captain, Blount has degrees from Fordham University, Pepperdine University and New York University. He is a member of the Executive Committee of Fordham’s President’s Council. A frequent speaker at industry conferences worldwide, Blount serves on the Advisory Board of the Mutual Fund Directors Forum and the Institutional Investor Task Force of Broadridge Financial Solutions, Inc. He was inducted into Asset International’s Securities Services Hall of Fame in June 2009.

David Schwartz

David Schwartz, Esq.

David Schwartz is Managing Director responsible for coordinating and overseeing client engagements and projects for the firm. In addition, Mr. Schwartz provides legal, tax, and financial accounting advice as well as policy and other analyses in connection with ASC engagements. His business and legal career spans 24 years and includes work in both the public and private sectors. Mr. Schwartz’s practice centers on risk management, corporate governance, and the regulation of financial services and products, including regulated investment companies.

As Senior Counsel at the Mutual Fund Directors Forum, a not-for-profit membership organization formed at the behest of the SEC to promote sound corporate governance principles for mutual fund independent directors, Mr. Schwartz assembled working groups of industry experts to assist him in crafting practical guidance for board governance of mutual fund risk and board oversight of securities lending programs . The resulting documents, "Risk Principles for Fund Directors," published in 2010, and "Practical Guidance for Fund Directors on the Oversight of Securities Lending," published in 2011, are considered the industry’s seminal works on their respective topics, and have been praised by the SEC and the fund industry.

While at the Forum, Mr. Schwartz organized and presented a series of educational conferences for fund directors in conjunction with Columbia University Law School on the topics of risk oversight and risk management, including the oversight of fund securities lending programs and funds’ use of derivative instruments:

Risk Principles for Fund Directors, June 2009.
Funds’ Use of Derivatives, November 2007.
Securities Lending: Micromanagement v. Effective Oversight, January 2006.

Mr. Schwartz has spoken extensively on risk governance, and published articles on the topic, including:

“Risk Governance and Mutual Fund Directors,” Practical Compliance & Risk Management for the Securities Industry, May-June 2011 Issue.
“Directors Should Confront Risk Governance Head On,” Board IQ, August 18, 2009

As an associate in the Washington, DC office of Kirkpatrick & Lockhart LLP, Mr. Schwartz advised clients on regulatory issues applicable to investment companies, including mutual funds, insurance company products, hedge funds, as well as investment advisers and their affiliates.

In 2001, Mr. Schwartz joined the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as Senior Counsel in the Division of Investment Management where he was primarily responsible for drafting investment management rule proposals and providing regulatory advice on investment company regulatory issues to the Division’s Director and the Commission.

Prior to obtaining his law degree, Mr. Schwartz was an auditor with Ernst & Young LLP providing financial audit assurance services to public and private retirement plans, the airline and commercial construction industries, and public broadcasting and other not-for-profit organizations.

Mr. Schwartz earned his BBA in Accounting (Magna Cum Laude) from Texas Tech University and his Juris Doctor (with honors) from the University of Texas School of Law. Mr. Schwartz is licensed to practice law in Texas and District of Columbia, and is admitted to practice before the United States Supreme Court and the United States Tax Court. He is also is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in Texas.

202-581-8800

Ed Blount

Founder

David Schwartz, Esq.