The Reverse Side Effects of Mark to Market Accounting: Exista and the Saga of Leveraged Paper Profits

We describe holding companies and their main roles. We follow up by describing the spectacular development of the investment company, Exista. We then discuss how the difference in fair value methods and equity methods may provide a false picture of the state of companies. This applies especially to different types of holding companies. Our paper shows an example of one that people generally perceived as being a financial company when in reality was more like an investment company, in this case a highly risky and leveraged one.