Robert Rubin Says Mark-to-Market has Done ‘Damage’

Jan. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Robert Rubin, who quit his post as senior counselor at Citigroup Inc. this month, said an accounting rule forcing companies to mark down assets every quarter to reflect market value has “done a great deal of damage.”

“I spent my whole life at Goldman Sachs believing in mark- to-market accounting, and having said that, if you look at the experience from the last two years, I think mark-to-market accounting has led to terrible vicious cycles in asset prices,” Rubin, the former U.S. Treasury secretary, said during a discussion at the 92nd Street Y late yesterday.

Companies including Citigroup and American International Group Inc. say mark-to-market, also known as fair-value accounting, doesn’t work when few buyers are willing to trade assets like subprime mortgages. Proponents such as the U.S. Financial Accounting Standards Board say the rule adds to transparency and gives investors information about companies.

Rubin joined Citigroup in 1999. Earlier this month, he announced he won’t stand for re-election to the board. Rubin, 70, proposed that a “reserve” accounting standard be adopted, which drew applause from the audience.

Citigroup received a $45 billion bailout from the U.S. government after reporting more than $85 billion of credit losses and writedowns from investments tainted by the subprime-mortgage crisis.

‘Controversial’

“Mark-to-market accounting has done a great deal of damage,” Rubin said. “For a lot of financial institutions we should move to something that is more similar to reserve accounting. That will be a very controversial matter.”

Under reserve accounting, assets like loans are carried at cost, offset by reserves for potential losses. Rubin was criticized by investors for collecting more than $150 million in pay in a decade while failing to steer Citigroup away from subprime mortgages.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc., where Rubin was co-chairman in the early 1990s and where he spent 26 years, is an advocate of fair- value accounting. Rubin left Goldman Sachs to become a top economic adviser to President Bill Clinton in 1993. In 1994, he succeeded Lloyd Bentsen as Treasury secretary, presiding over five years of economic growth.

“For us, fair value is the oxygen of the firm,” Matthew Schroeder, managing director for accounting policy at Goldman Sachs, said at a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission public meeting in July. “It’s part of our fabric. We follow a daily discipline of marking to market at our firm. It can be done.”

The SEC said the rule should be improved rather than suspended in a study released Dec. 30.