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.

Eric Poer is the Co-Leader of the Securities Accounting and Regulatory Enforcement practice for FTI Consulting. He has more than 20 years of experience providing attorneys and clients with complex dispute consulting, forensic accounting, and investigatory engagements as well as deposition and trial testimony.

Mr. Poer brings to his clients an array of services designed to help organizations and individuals address critical issues in litigation and to mitigate risk, enhance corporate governance and improve performance. He directs large-scale financial investigative assignments including forensic accounting investigations, financial fraud investigations and white collar crime investigations.

Mr. Poer’s background as an accountant includes performing financial statement audits of publicly and privately held companies and providing merger, acquisition, and divestiture services. He also has considerable experience in labor and employment disputes and investigations.

Mr. Poer’s litigation and dispute advisory services experience includes assisting domestic and international clients in high-stakes commercial and securities litigation dispute disputes. He assists in-house and external counsel in matters involving accounting analysis and the economics and financial analyses of complex transactions and damages resulting from a variety of civil claims. Additionally, Mr. Poer has extensive experience providing expert witness testimony in more than 35 securities and commercial litigation matters.

Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Mr. Poer worked on complex litigation and investigative matters at LECG and was also a Financial Statement Auditor at KPMG, which is an internationally recognized public accounting firm. Before joining KPMG, he worked at Arthur Andersen and UBS financial services.

Mr. Poer has served as an adjunct professor at Golden Gate University where he instructs a post-graduate forensic accounting course on conducting independent corporate financial investigations.

Certifications

• Certified Public Accountant (CPA), Oregon and California
• Certified Fraud Examiner (CFE)
• Certified in Financial Forensics (CFF)
• Accredited in Business Valuation (ABV)

Associations

• American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA)
• Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE)
• Forensic Accounting Advisory Board, Golden Gate University
• Oregon Society of Certified Public Accountants (OSCPA)

Education

• B.S., Public Finance, Indiana University