Repo 105

What is Repo 105?

Author: Rohan Arora
Rohan Arora
Rohan Arora
Investment Banking | Private Equity

Mr. Arora is an experienced private equity investment professional, with experience working across multiple markets. Rohan has a focus in particular on consumer and business services transactions and operational growth. Rohan has also worked at Evercore, where he also spent time in private equity advisory.

Rohan holds a BA (Hons., Scholar) in Economics and Management from Oxford University.

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Reviewed By: Osman Ahmed
Osman Ahmed
Osman Ahmed
Investment Banking | Private Equity

Osman started his career as an investment banking analyst at Thomas Weisel Partners where he spent just over two years before moving into a growth equity investing role at Scale Venture Partners, focused on technology. He's currently a VP at KCK Group, the private equity arm of a middle eastern family office. Osman has a generalist industry focus on lower middle market growth equity and buyout transactions.

Osman holds a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from the University of Southern California and a Master of Business Administration with concentrations in Finance, Entrepreneurship, and Economics from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

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Last Updated:September 15, 2022

Repo 105 is an accounting measure which is used by firms to move assets off balance sheet to disguise their leverage and capital ratios. This is done by an agreement between two parties to exchange assets for cash for a very short term (usually when the financial statements are published) and then to trade back to the original situation.

Repo 105 was notoriously used by Lehman Brothers to disguise up to $50 billion in liabilities in order to reduce their accounted leverage and to make them look more stable.

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