Everything You Need to Know About Risk

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It’s not often that an academic research paper makes you laugh out loud, but that’s exactly what happened when I found this Easter egg inside of 150 Risks in Finance: An Alphabetical List of Definitions and Examples:

A definition entry for crypto risk, describing the risk of mistaking cryptocurrencies and NFTs for investments rather than speculative gambles

They appear to have a good sense of humor at the University of Otago. But they also know their risks, so I recommend you keep that link on hand as a handy reference guide. 

There are also some exercises at the end where they propose scenarios and invite you to identify the inherent risks. I had fun reading those and figured it might be worthwhile to apply the framework to what we do…

Scenario: You have the opportunity to acquire a majority stake in a small business run by its retiring founder who says the business is in great shape. What risks do you face?

Let’s take them alphabetically…

A definition entry for audit risk, describing financial statements that are materially incorrect despite auditors signing off
Definition entries for business cycle risk, business interruption risk, cash flow risk, corsair risk, and due diligence risk
A definition entry for institutional knowledge risk, describing what happens when key people leave without transferring what they know

I’ll stop there, but you get the point. Why do we do what we do again? Have a great weekend.

– By Tim Hanson


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