Much of the leverage used by Bill Hwang’s Archegos Capital Management was provided by banks including Nomura and Credit Suisse through swaps or so-called contracts-for-difference, according to people with direct knowledge of the deals. It means Archegos may never actually have owned most of the underlying securities -- if any at all. While investors who build a stake of more than 5% in a U.S.-listed company usually have to disclose their position and subsequent transactions, that’s not the case with stakes built through the type of derivatives apparently used by Archegos. The products, which are made off exchanges, allow managers like Hwang to amass stakes in publicly traded companies without having to declare their holdings.
Over-the-counter equity derivatives occupy one of the smallest corners of this opaque market. Swaps and forwards linked to stocks had a gross market value of $282 billion at the end of June 2020, according to data from the Bank for International Settlements. That compared with $10.3 trillion for swaps linked to interest rates and $2.4 trillion for swaps and forwards linked to currencies.