Panelists Will Have the Lowdown on Meltdown

Understanding bail-outs, buy-outs, foreclosures and all that is toxic (as in assets) challenges even the best minds. A panel discussion at the UT Dallas School of Management will help local business leaders keep track of the terminology and divine what this news from Washington, D.C., means to the economy.

“The Financial Meltdown – What it is. What it means. How to survive in 2009” will be held 7:30 to 9 a.m. Tuesday, April 14 at the School of Management’s Executive Dining Room. Dennis McCuistion will moderate the discussion of panelists including School of Management professors Constantine Konstans, Stan Liebowitz and David Springate.

Konstans, who heads the UT Dallas Institute for Excellence in Corporate Governance, addresses the need for companies’ boards of directors to embrace transparency, accountability and truthfulness. “These are keywords in the corporate governance world and among boards of directors and senior managers. Even companies that don’t face public stockholder concerns or government rescue dollars should be embracing these standards,” Konstans says.

Liebowitz, director of the UT Dallas Center for the Analysis of Property Rights and Innovation, has been sounding the alarm about subprime mortgages for years. He testified twice to U.S. congressional committees in the past year about the subprime issue. His writing, “Anatomy of a Train Wreck: Causes of the Mortgage Meltdown,” was included in the recently published Housing America: Building Out of a Crisis (Transaction Publishers, 2009).

Serving as the Dallas chapter president of FEI-Financial Executives International and the director of the UT Dallas Center for Finance Strategy Innovation, Springate’s expertise is private equity issues and public-private partnerships regarding financing, most recently preparing a report for the state legislature on private funding for toll roads in Texas. He also studies the relationship between regional and global financial issues and, through the center, brings together leaders from academia, industry and the financial community with public officials and policy experts.

Reservations are required, at www.insidetxbiz.com/newsmaker, for the event, which costs $10 and is open to the public. The event is being co-sponsored by the School of Management and Collin County Business Press.

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