investment portfolio so that the proceeds could be reinvested in safe, and liquid, short-dated
government stock. By January 19, with this restructuring completed, Orange Countys financial
firestorm was over but its losses had crystallised at around $1.69 billion. Some expert
commentators have argued that it could have cut this bill if only it had had the nerve to hang
onto some of Citrons investment portfolio.
But this makes little difference to the fundamental lessons to be learned from the debacle. Citron
exposed a set of conservative investors with specific funding needs to a risky portfolio. He failed
to communicate the extent of the market risk, or liquidity risk, to either the investors or to his
supervisory board though he did not try to hide the fundamentals of his strategy. (Had he
properly assessed and communicated the level of risk, the pool would not have attracted riskaverse