Value and Capital Management: A Handbook for the Finance and Risk Functions of Financial Institutions

"Drawing on his rich experience as CRO in insurance, reinsurance and banking, Thomas Wilson provides a fascinating perspective on how CFOs and CROs create value for the firm, the customers and the shareholders by better managing capital and risk. The handbook offers a lot to many – from mathematical and technical foundations to strategic advice, from real-world examples to historical background, from challenges to solutions. It not only gives insights for risk and finance professionals, directors and regulators, but will also – and this is important – inspire students to pursue a career in financial services."
—Walter Kielholz, chairman of the supervisory board, Swiss Reinsurance

"Managing for value is not easy in the best of times. It is even more challenging given the fast-paced and fundamental changes affecting banking and insurance today, including new regulations, unprecedented low interest rates, weak global economic development and the emergence of non-traditional competitors. Tom's handbook represents a valuable and practical anchor for managing value and capital in banking and insurance, which currently faces a torrent of change."
—Paul Achleitner, chairman of the supervisory board, Deutsche Bank

"Financial firms build inventory on their balance sheets instead of selling from inventory, causing long balance sheets and inventory risk; in addition, financial products represent an inherent promise, sometimes far in the future, which may not always be possible to fulfill. Post crisis, financial institutions have learned the hard way the importance of aligning returns, capital requirements and risk acceptance. In this industry, valuation is complicated and must be looked at critically. Aligning returns, capital and risk is essential; three important challenges addressed by this handbook."
—Koos Timmermans, vice chairman, ING Bank

"Capital is the gasoline that keeps risk and balance sheet intensive businesses on the road. Actively managing capital – by allocating it to the best possible use and ensuring that the businesses are running at top capital 'fuel efficiency' – can mean the difference between winning the race for shareholders or being relegated to the 'also-ran' category of firms. This handbook is an essential reference to managing value and capital in banking and insurance."
—Dieter Wemmer, chief financial officer, Allianz SE

"Tom Wilson brings a unique combination of academic study and in-depth practical business experience to his authorship of value and capital management of financial institutions. He has been both an advisor to top management as well as a top manager in his own right. His handbook should be on the desk of every leader in the field. It is comprehensive, thorough and up to date. You will not find a more useful exposition of the tools of risk management as presented in a valuation framework."
—Thomas Copeland, cofounder, Copeland Valuation Consultants

"Practice as well as academia should be grateful to Tom Wilson for sharing with us his immense experience on and insight in value and capital management for insurance and banking. I personally could not have thought of a more appropriate person to guide us through the complexity of the modern risk and value landscape of financial institutions. The author not only early on contributed to the methodological development of some of the tools currently in use throughout industry and regulation, but experienced firsthand the reality of bringing these new tools to bear within a broad variety of companies. The result is a handbook to be read and studied by all stakeholders involved. From an academic point of view I very much want to stress the bridge-building function from theory to practice and back and very much hope that my academic colleagues will use this book as guidance for some of their more applied research."
—Paul Embrechts, Professor of Mathematics, RiskLab, ETH Zurich, Switzerland