Robert Pozen, chairman of MFS Investment Management, talks with Bloomberg’s Matt Miller and Carol Massar about the impact of Greece’s sovereign debt crisis on the US economy. US stocks tumbled the most in a year on concern Europes debt crisis will halt the global recovery.

Local banks, insurers, financial firms brace for a new regimen of rules. Tracking these investments [derivatives] is critical, according to many observers. More important even than putting them on an exchange, said Pozen, the chairman of MFS Investment Management, is having a central clearing firm that processes those trades and can be examined by regulators.

By SEWELL CHAN and BINYAMIN APPELBAUM. Robert C. Pozen, chairman of MFS Investment Management and author of “Too Big to Save? How to Fix the U.S. Financial System” (Wiley, 2010), wants to require banks to issue an existing kind of bond known as long-term subordinated debt. “Subordinated debt is bought by very sophisticated investors who insist on conditions like capital requirements and covenants to make sure that banks don’t take on too much risk,” he says.

Since their investment is not ..read more

CoCo with its mandatory conversion presents the unappetising combination of bond returns with equity-type risk. Sub-debt with an option to convert offers bond risks with the potential for equity-type returns. Which one would you choose?

A special report on financial risk. Robert Pozen … thinks bank boards would be more effective with fewer but more committed members. Cutting their size to 4-8, rather than the 10-18 typical now, would foster more personal responsibility. More financial-services expertise would help too. After the passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley act in 2002 banks hired more independent directors, many of whom lacked relevant experience. The former spymaster on Citi’s board and the theatrical impresario on Lehman’s may have been ..read more

Robert Pozen looks at the causes of the 2008 financial collapse and says that the financial system needs to be reformed so that we don’t see a repeat down the road. He argues for changing the incentive system on Wall Street and calls for strengthening the government regulation of financial markets. (1 hours, 9 minutes)

By John Plender. After two and a half years of relentless financial pounding, the crisis literature is becoming mountainous. To command the weary reviewer’s attention, any new book on the aberrations of the financial community has to have a clear focus and make a compelling case. In Too Big To Save? Robert Pozen, chairman of mutual fund group MFS Investment Management and a former vice-chairman of Fidelity Investments, pulls off the trick. 

Interview by Tom Hudson. Author Robert Pozen Addresses How to Fix The System.

Transcript available.

By Ross Kerber. University economists are already teaching courses on the history of the financial crisis of 2008 and the policy responses that followed. Robert Pozen’s new book could become required reading.

“Too Big to Save? How to Fix the U.S. Financial System” (Wiley, $29.95), provides both a detailed look at the run-up to the financial system’s brush with disaster and many prescriptions in response.

Government action to stem collapse of the U.S. financial system was certainly warranted, agrees professor Robert Pozen. But results include less competition and increased risk to taxpayers. A Q&A from the HBS Alumni Bulletin and book excerpt from Too Big to Save?