title: Securitization

text: Securitization is the financial practice of pooling various types of contractual debt such as residential mortgages, commercial mortgages, auto loans or credit card debt obligations (or other non-debt assets which generate receivables) and selling their related cash flows to third party investors as securities, which may be described as bonds, pass-through securities, or collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). Investors are repaid from the principal and interest cash flows collected from the underlying debt and redistributed through the capital structure of the new financing. Securities backed by mortgage receivables are called mortgage-backed securities (MBS), while those backed by other types of receivables are asset-backed securities (ABS).


title: Securitization

text: The granularity of pools of securitized assets can mitigate the credit risk of individual borrowers. Unlike general corporate debt, the credit quality of securitized debt is non-stationary due to changes in volatility that are time- and structure-dependent. If the transaction is properly structured and the pool performs as expected, the credit risk of all tranches of structured debt improves; if improperly structured, the affected tranches may experience dramatic credit deterioration and loss.


title: Securitization

text: Securitization has evolved from its beginnings in the late 18th century to an estimated outstanding of $10.24 trillion in the United States and $2.25 trillion in Europe as of the 2nd quarter of 2008. In 2007, ABS issuance amounted to $3.455 trillion in the US and $652 billion in Europe. WBS (Whole Business Securitization) arrangements first appeared in the United Kingdom in the 1990s, and became common in various Commonwealth legal systems where senior creditors of an insolvent business effectively gain the right to control the company.


title: Securitization

text: The originator initially owns the assets engaged in the deal. This is typically a company looking to either raise capital, restructure debt or otherwise adjust its finances (but also includes businesses established specifically to generate marketable debt (consumer or otherwise) for the purpose of subsequent securitization). Under traditional corporate finance concepts, such a company would have three options to raise new capital: a loan, bond issue, or issuance of stock. However, stock offerings dilute the ownership and control of the company, while loan or bond financing is often prohibitively expensive due to the credit rating of the company and the associated rise in interest rates.


title: Securitization

text: The consistently revenue-generating part of the company may have a much higher credit rating than the company as a whole. For instance, a leasing company may have provided $10m nominal value of leases, and it will receive a cash flow over the next five years from these. It cannot demand early repayment on the leases and so cannot get its money back early if required. If it could sell the rights to the cash flows from the leases to someone else, it could transform that income stream into a lump sum today (in effect, receiving today the present value of a future cash flow). Where the originator is a bank or other organization that must meet capital adequacy requirements, the structure is usually more complex because a separate company is set up to buy the assets.


title: Securitization

text: A suitably large portfolio of assets is "pooled" and transferred to a "special purpose vehicle" or "SPV" (the issuer), a tax-exempt company or trust formed for the specific purpose of funding the assets. Once the assets are transferred to the issuer, there is normally no recourse to the originator. The issuer is "bankruptcy remote", meaning that if the originator goes into bankruptcy, the assets of the issuer will not be distributed to the creditors of the originator. In order to achieve this, the governing documents of the issuer restrict its activities to only those necessary to complete the issuance of securities. Many issuers are typically "orphaned". In the case of certain assets, such as credit card debt, where the portfolio is made up of a constantly changing pool of receivables, a trust in favor of the SPV may be declared in place of traditional transfer by assignment (see the outline of the master trust structure below).


title: Securitization

text: Accounting standards govern when such a transfer is a true sale, a financing, a partial sale, or a part-sale and part-financing. In a true sale, the originator is allowed to remove the transferred assets from its balance sheet: in a financing, the assets are considered to remain the property of the originator. Under US accounting standards, the originator achieves a sale by being at arm's length from the issuer, in which case the issuer is classified as a "qualifying special purpose entity" or "qSPE".


title: Securitization

text: Because of these structural issues, the originator typically needs the help of an investment bank (the arranger) in setting up the structure of the transaction.


title: Securitization

text: To be able to buy the assets from the originator, the issuer SPV issues tradable securities to fund the purchase. Investors purchase the securities, either through a private offering (targeting institutional investors) or on the open market. The performance of the securities is then directly linked to the performance of the assets. Credit rating agencies rate the securities which are issued to provide an external perspective on the liabilities being created and help the investor make a more informed decision.


title: Securitization

text: In transactions with static assets, a depositor will assemble the underlying collateral, help structure the securities and work with the financial markets to sell the securities to investors. The depositor has taken on added significance under Regulation AB. The depositor typically owns 100% of the beneficial interest in the issuing entity and is usually the parent or a wholly owned subsidiary of the parent which initiates the transaction. In transactions with managed (traded) assets, asset managers assemble the underlying collateral, help structure the securities and work with the financial markets in order to sell the securities to investors.


title: Securitization

text: Some deals may include a third-party guarantor which provides guarantees or partial guarantees for the assets, the principal and the interest payments, for a fee.


title: Securitization

text: The securities can be issued with either a fixed interest rate or a floating rate under currency pegging system. Fixed rate ABS set the "coupon" (rate) at the time of issuance, in a fashion similar to corporate bonds and T-Bills. Floating rate securities may be backed by both amortizing and non-amortizing assets in the floating market. In contrast to fixed rate securities, the rates on "floaters" will periodically adjust up or down according to a designated index such as a U.S. Treasury rate, or, more typically, the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR). The floating rate usually reflects the movement in the index plus an additional fixed margin to cover the added risk.


title: Securitization

text: Unlike conventional corporate bonds which are unsecured, securities created in a securitization are "credit enhanced", meaning their credit quality is increased above that of the originator's unsecured debt or underlying asset pool. This increases the likelihood that the investors will receive the cash flows to which they are entitled, and thus enables the securities to have a higher credit rating than the originator. Some securitizations use external credit enhancement provided by third parties, such as surety bonds and parental guarantees (although this may introduce a conflict of interest).


title: Securitization

text: The issued securities are often split into tranches, or categorized into varying degrees of subordination. Each tranche has a different level of credit protection or risk exposure: there is generally a senior ("A") class of securities and one or more junior subordinated ("B", "C", etc.) classes that function as protective layers for the "A" class. The senior classes have first claim on the cash that the SPV receives, and the more junior classes only start receiving repayment after the more senior classes have been repaid. Because of the cascading effect between classes, this arrangement is often referred to as a cash flow waterfall. If the underlying asset pool becomes insufficient to make payments on the securities (e.g. when loans default within a portfolio of loan claims), the loss is absorbed first by the subordinated tranches, and the upper-level tranches remain unaffected until the losses exceed the entire amount of the subordinated tranches. The senior securities might be AAA or AA rated, signifying a lower risk, while the lower-credit quality subordinated classes receive a lower credit rating, signifying a higher risk.


title: Securitization

text: The most junior class (often called the equity class) is the most exposed to payment risk. In some cases, this is a special type of instrument which is retained by the originator as a potential profit flow. In some cases the equity class receives no coupon (either fixed or floating), but only the residual cash flow (if any) after all the other classes have been paid.


title: Securitization

text: There may also be a special class which absorbs early repayments in the underlying assets. This is often the case where the underlying assets are mortgages which, in essence, are repaid whenever the properties are sold. Since any early repayments are passed on to this class, it means the other investors have a more predictable cash flow.


title: Securitization

text: If the underlying assets are mortgages or loans, there are usually two separate "waterfalls" because the principal and interest receipts can be easily allocated and matched. But if the assets are income-based transactions such as rental deals one cannot categorise the revenue so easily between income and principal repayment. In this case all the revenue is used to pay the cash flows due on the bonds as those cash flows become due.


title: Securitization

text: Credit enhancements affect credit risk by providing more or less protection for promised cash flows for a security. Additional protection can help a security achieve a higher rating, lower protection can help create new securities with differently desired risks, and these differential protections can make the securities more attractive.


title: Securitization

text: A servicer collects payments and monitors the assets that are the crux of the structured financial deal. The servicer can often be the originator, because the servicer needs very similar expertise to the originator and would want to ensure that loan repayments are paid to the Special Purpose Vehicle.


title: Securitization

text: The servicer can significantly affect the cash flows to the investors because it controls the collection policy, which influences the proceeds collected, the charge-offs and the recoveries on the loans. Any income remaining after payments and expenses is usually accumulated to some extent in a reserve or spread account, and any further excess is returned to the seller. Bond rating agencies publish ratings of asset-backed securities based on the performance of the collateral pool, the credit enhancements and the probability of default.


title: Securitization

text: When the issuer is structured as a trust, the trustee is a vital part of the deal as the gate-keeper of the assets that are being held in the issuer. Even though the trustee is part of the SPV, which is typically wholly owned by the Originator, the trustee has a fiduciary duty to protect the assets and those who own the assets, typically the investors.


title: Securitization

text: Unlike corporate bonds, most securitizations are amortized, meaning that the principal amount borrowed is paid back gradually over the specified term of the loan, rather than in one lump sum at the maturity of the loan. Fully amortizing securitizations are generally collateralised by fully amortizing assets, such as home equity loans, auto loans, and student loans. Prepayment uncertainty is an important concern with fully amortizing ABS. The possible rate of prepayment varies widely with the type of underlying asset pool, so many prepayment models have been developed to try to define common prepayment activity. The PSA prepayment model is a well-known example.


title: Securitization

text: A controlled amortization structure can give investors a more predictable repayment schedule, even though the underlying assets may be nonamortising. After a predetermined "revolving period", during which only interest payments are made, these securitizations attempt to return principal to investors in a series of defined periodic payments, usually within a year. An early amortization event is the risk of the debt being retired early.


title: Securitization

text: On the other hand, bullet or slug structures return the principal to investors in a single payment. The most common bullet structure is called the soft bullet, meaning that the final bullet payment is not guaranteed to be paid on the scheduled maturity date; however, the majority of these securitizations are paid on time. The second type of bullet structure is the hard bullet, which guarantees that the principal will be paid on the scheduled maturity date. Hard bullet structures are less common for two reasons: investors are comfortable with soft bullet structures, and they are reluctant to accept the lower yields of hard bullet securities in exchange for a guarantee.


title: Securitization

text: Securitizations are often structured as a sequential pay bond, paid off in a sequential manner based on maturity. This means that the first tranche, which may have a one-year average life, will receive all principal payments until it is retired; then the second tranche begins to receive principal, and so forth. Pro rata bond structures pay each tranche a proportionate share of principal throughout the life of the security.


title: Securitization

text: Some originators (e.g. of mortgages) have prioritised loan volume over credit quality, disregarding the long-term risk of the assets they have created in their enthusiasm to profit from the fees associated with origination and securitization. Other originators, aware of the reputational harm and added expense if risky loans are subject to repurchase requests or improperly originated loans lead to litigation, have paid more attention to credit quality.


title: Securitization

text: A master trust is a type of SPV particularly suited to handle revolving credit card balances, and has the flexibility to handle different securities at different times. In a typical master trust transaction, an originator of credit card receivables transfers a pool of those receivables to the trust and then the trust issues securities backed by these receivables. Often there will be many tranched securities issued by the trust all based on one set of receivables. After this transaction, typically the originator would continue to service the receivables, in this case the credit cards.


title: Securitization

text: There are various risks involved with master trusts specifically. One risk is that timing of cash flows promised to investors might be different from timing of payments on the receivables. For example, credit card-backed securities can have maturities of up to 10 years, but credit card-backed receivables usually pay off much more quickly. To solve this issue these securities typically have a revolving period, an accumulation period, and an amortization period. All three of these periods are based on historical experience of the receivables. During the revolving period, principal payments received on the credit card balances are used to purchase additional receivables. During the accumulation period, these payments are accumulated in a separate account. During the amortization period, new payments are passed through to the investors.


title: Securitization

text: A second risk is that the total investor interests and the seller's interest are limited to receivables generated by the credit cards, but the seller (originator) owns the accounts. This can cause issues with how the seller controls the terms and conditions of the accounts. Typically to solve this, there is language written into the securitization to protect the investors and potential receivables.


title: Securitization

text: A third risk is that payments on the receivables can shrink the pool balance and under-collateralize total investor interest. To prevent this, often there is a required minimum seller's interest, and if there was a decrease then an early amortization event would occur.


title: Securitization

text: In 2000, Citibank introduced a new structure for credit card-backed securities, called an issuance trust, which does not have limitations that master trusts sometimes do, that requires each issued series of securities to have both a senior and subordinate tranche. There are other benefits to an issuance trust: they provide more flexibility in issuing senior/subordinate securities, can increase demand because pension funds are eligible to invest in investment-grade securities issued by them, and they can significantly reduce the cost of issuing securities. Because of these issues, issuance trusts are now the dominant structure used by major issuers of credit card-backed securities.


title: Securitization

text: Grantor trusts are typically used in automobile-backed securities and REMICs (Real Estate Mortgage Investment Conduits). Grantor trusts are very similar to pass-through trusts used in the earlier days of securitization. An originator pools together loans and sells them to a grantor trust, which issues classes of securities backed by these loans. Principal and interest received on the loans, after expenses are taken into account, are passed through to the holders of the securities on a pro-rata basis.


title: Securitization

text: In an owner trust, there is more flexibility in allocating principal and interest received to different classes of issued securities. In an owner trust, both interest and principal due to subordinate securities can be used to pay senior securities. Due to this, owner trusts can tailor maturity, risk and return profiles of issued securities to investor needs. Usually, any income remaining after expenses is kept in a reserve account up to a specified level and then after that, all income is returned to the seller. Owner trusts allow credit risk to be mitigated by over-collateralization by using excess reserves and excess finance income to prepay securities before principal, which leaves more collateral for the other classes.


title: Securitization

text: Reduces funding costs: Through securitization, a company rated BB but with AAA worthy cash flow would be able to borrow at possibly AAA rates. This is the number one reason to securitize a cash flow and can have tremendous impacts on borrowing costs. The difference between BB debt and AAA debt can be multiple hundreds of basis points. For example, Moody's downgraded Ford Motor Credit's rating in January 2002, but senior automobile backed securities, issued by Ford Motor Credit in January 2002 and April 2002, continue to be rated AAA because of the strength of the underlying collateral and other credit enhancements.


title: Securitization

text: Reduces asset-liability mismatch: "Depending on the structure chosen, securitization can offer perfect matched funding by eliminating funding exposure in terms of both duration and pricing basis." Essentially, in most banks and finance companies, the liability book or the funding is from borrowings. This often comes at a high cost. Securitization allows such banks and finance companies to create a self-funded asset book.


title: Securitization

text: Lower capital requirements: Some firms, due to legal, regulatory, or other reasons, have a limit or range that their leverage is allowed to be. By securitizing some of their assets, which qualifies as a sale for accounting purposes, these firms will be able to remove assets from their balance sheets while maintaining the "earning power" of the assets.


title: Securitization

text: Locking in profits: For a given block of business, the total profits have not yet emerged and thus remain uncertain. Once the block has been securitized, the level of profits has now been locked in for that company, thus the risk of profit not emerging, or the benefit of super-profits, has now been passed on.


title: Securitization

text: Transfer risks (credit, liquidity, prepayment, reinvestment, asset concentration): Securitization makes it possible to transfer risks from an entity that does not want to bear it, to one that does. Two good examples of this are catastrophe bonds and Entertainment Securitizations. Similarly, by securitizing a block of business (thereby locking in a degree of profits), the company has effectively freed up its balance to go out and write more profitable business.


title: Securitization

text: Off balance sheet: Derivatives of many types have in the past been referred to as "off-balance-sheet". This term implies that the use of derivatives has no balance sheet impact. While there are differences among the various accounting standards internationally, there is a general trend towards the requirement to record derivatives at fair value on the balance sheet. There is also a generally accepted principle that, where derivatives are being used as a hedge against underlying assets or liabilities, accounting adjustments are required to ensure that the gain/loss on the hedged instrument is recognized in the income statement on a similar basis as the underlying assets and liabilities. Certain credit derivatives products, particularly Credit Default Swaps, now have more or less universally accepted market standard documentation. In the case of Credit Default Swaps, this documentation has been formulated by the International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) who have for a long time provided documentation on how to treat such derivatives on balance sheets.


title: Securitization

text: Earnings: Securitization makes it possible to record an earnings bounce without any real addition to the firm. When a securitization takes place, there often is a "true sale" that takes place between the Originator (the parent company) and the SPE. This sale has to be for the market value of the underlying assets for the "true sale" to stick and thus this sale is reflected on the parent company's balance sheet, which will boost earnings for that quarter by the amount of the sale. While not illegal in any respect, this does distort the true earnings of the parent company.


title: Securitization

text: Admissibility: Future cashflows may not get full credit in a company's accounts (life insurance companies, for example, may not always get full credit for future surpluses in their regulatory balance sheet), and a securitization effectively turns an admissible future surplus flow into an admissible immediate cash asset.


title: Securitization

text: Liquidity: Future cashflows may simply be balance sheet items which currently are not available for spending, whereas once the book has been securitized, the cash would be available for immediate spending or investment. This also creates a reinvestment book which may well be at better rates.


title: Securitization

text: May reduce portfolio quality: If the AAA risks, for example, are being securitized out, this would leave a materially worse quality of residual risk.


title: Securitization

text: Costs: Securitizations are expensive due to management and system costs, legal fees, underwriting fees, rating fees and ongoing administration. An allowance for unforeseen costs is usually essential in securitizations, especially if it is an atypical securitization.


title: Securitization

text: Size limitations: Securitizations often require large scale structuring, and thus may not be cost-efficient for small and medium transactions.


title: Securitization

text: Risks: Since securitization is a structured transaction, it may include par structures as well as credit enhancements that are subject to risks of impairment, such as prepayment, as well as credit loss, especially for structures where there are some retained strips.


title: Securitization

text: Opportunity to invest in a specific pool of high quality assets: Due to the stringent requirements for corporations (for example) to attain high ratings, there is a dearth of highly rated entities that exist. Securitizations, however, allow for the creation of large quantities of AAA, AA or A rated bonds, and risk averse institutional investors, or investors that are required to invest in only highly rated assets, have access to a larger pool of investment options.


title: Securitization

text: Portfolio diversification: Depending on the securitization, hedge funds as well as other institutional investors tend to like investing in bonds created through securitizations because they may be uncorrelated to their other bonds and securities.


title: Securitization

text: Isolation of credit risk from the parent entity: Since the assets that are securitized are isolated (at least in theory) from the assets of the originating entity, under securitization it may be possible for the securitization to receive a higher credit rating than the "parent", because the underlying risks are different. For example, a small bank may be considered more risky than the mortgage loans it makes to its customers; were the mortgage loans to remain with the bank, the borrowers may effectively be paying higher interest (or, just as likely, the bank would be paying higher interest to its creditors, and hence less profitable).


title: Securitization

text: Credit/default: Default risk is generally accepted as a borrower’s inability to meet interest payment obligations on time. For ABS, default may occur when maintenance obligations on the underlying collateral are not sufficiently met as detailed in its prospectus. A key indicator of a particular security’s default risk is its credit rating. Different tranches within the ABS are rated differently, with senior classes of most issues receiving the highest rating, and subordinated classes receiving correspondingly lower credit ratings. Almost all mortgages, including reverse mortgages, and student loans, are now insured by the government, meaning that taxpayers are on the hook for any of these loans that go bad even if the asset is massively over-inflated. In other words, there are no limits or curbs on over-spending, or the liabilities to taxpayers.


title: Securitization

text: However, the credit crisis of 2007–2008 has exposed a potential flaw in the securitization process – loan originators retain no residual risk for the loans they make, but collect substantial fees on loan issuance and securitization, which doesn't encourage improvement of underwriting standards.


title: Securitization

text: Prepayment/reinvestment/early amortization: The majority of revolving ABS are subject to some degree of early amortization risk. The risk stems from specific early amortization events or payout events that cause the security to be paid off prematurely. Typically, payout events include insufficient payments from the underlying borrowers, insufficient excess spread, a rise in the default rate on the underlying loans above a specified level, a decrease in credit enhancements below a specific level, and bankruptcy on the part of the sponsor or servicer.


title: Securitization

text: Currency interest rate fluctuations: Like all fixed income securities, the prices of fixed rate ABS move in response to changes in interest rates. Fluctuations in interest rates affect floating rate ABS prices less than fixed rate securities, as the index against which the ABS rate adjusts will reflect interest rate changes in the economy. Furthermore, interest rate changes may affect the prepayment rates on underlying loans that back some types of ABS, which can affect yields. Home equity loans tend to be the most sensitive to changes in interest rates, while auto loans, student loans, and credit cards are generally less sensitive to interest rates.


title: Securitization

text: Moral hazard: Investors usually rely on the deal manager to price the securitizations’ underlying assets. If the manager earns fees based on performance, there may be a temptation to mark up the prices of the portfolio assets. Conflicts of interest can also arise with senior note holders when the manager has a claim on the deal's excess spread.


title: Securitization

text: Servicer risk: The transfer or collection of payments may be delayed or reduced if the servicer becomes insolvent. This risk is mitigated by having a backup servicer involved in the transaction.


title: Securitization

text: Among the early examples of mortgage-backed securities in the United States were the farm railroad mortgage bonds of the mid-19th century which contributed to the panic of 1857.


title: Securitization

text: In February 1970, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development created the first modern residential mortgage-backed security. The Government National Mortgage Association (GNMA or Ginnie Mae) sold securities backed by a portfolio of mortgage loans.


title: Securitization

text: To facilitate the securitization of non-mortgage assets, businesses substituted private credit enhancements. First, they over-collateralised pools of assets; shortly thereafter, they improved third-party and structural enhancements. In 1985, securitization techniques that had been developed in the mortgage market were applied for the first time to a class of non-mortgage assets — automobile loans. A pool of assets second only to mortgages in volume, auto loans were a good match for structured finance; their maturities, considerably shorter than those of mortgages, made the timing of cash flows more predictable, and their long statistical histories of performance gave investors confidence.


title: Securitization

text: This early auto loan deal was a $60 million securitization originated by Marine Midland Bank and securitised in 1985 by the Certificate for Automobile Receivables Trust (CARS, 1985-1).


title: Securitization

text: The first significant bank credit card sale came to market in 1986 with a private placement of $50 million of outstanding bank card loans. This transaction demonstrated to investors that, if the yields were high enough, loan pools could support asset sales with higher expected losses and administrative costs than was true within the mortgage market. Sales of this type — with no contractual obligation by the seller to provide recourse — allowed banks to receive sales treatment for accounting and regulatory purposes (easing balance sheet and capital constraints), while at the same time allowing them to retain origination and servicing fees. After the success of this initial transaction, investors grew to accept credit card receivables as collateral, and banks developed structures to normalize the cash flows.


title: Securitization

text: Starting in the 1990s with some earlier private transactions, securitization technology was applied to a number of sectors of the reinsurance and insurance markets including life and catastrophe. This activity grew to nearly $15bn of issuance in 2006 following the disruptions in the underlying markets caused by Hurricane Katrina and Regulation XXX. Key areas of activity in the broad area of Alternative Risk Transfer include catastrophe bonds, Life Insurance Securitization and Reinsurance Sidecars.


title: Securitization

text: The first public Securitization of Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) loans started in 1997. CRA loans are loans targeted to low and moderate income borrowers and neighborhoods.


title: Securitization

text: As estimated by the Bond Market Association, in the United States, the total amount outstanding at the end of 2004 was $1.8 trillion. This amount was about 8 percent of total outstanding bond market debt ($23.6 trillion), about 33 percent of mortgage-related debt ($5.5 trillion), and about 39 percent of corporate debt ($4.7 trillion) in the United States. In nominal terms, over the previous ten years (1995–2004) ABS amount outstanding had grown about 19 percent annually, with mortgage-related debt and corporate debt each growing at about 9 percent. Gross public issuance of asset-backed securities was strong, setting new records in many years. In 2004, issuance was at an all-time record of about $0.9 trillion.


title: Securitization

text: At the end of 2004, the larger sectors of this market were credit card-backed securities (21 percent), home-equity backed securities (25 percent), automobile-backed securities (13 percent), and collateralized debt obligations (15 percent). Among the other market segments were student loan-backed securities (6 percent), equipment leases (4 percent), manufactured housing (2 percent), small business loans (such as loans to convenience stores and gas stations), and aircraft leases.


title: Securitization

text: Modern securitization took off in the late 1990s or early 2000s, thanks to the innovative structures implemented across the asset classes, such as UK Mortgage Master Trusts (concept imported from the US Credit Cards), Insurance-backed transaction (such as those implemented by the insurance securitization guru Emmanuel Issanchou) or even more esoteric asset classes (for example securitization of lottery receivables).


title: Securitization

text: As the result of the credit crunch precipitated by the subprime mortgage crisis the US market for bonds backed by securitised loans was very weak in 2008 except for bonds guaranteed by a federally backed agency. As a result, interest rates rose for loans that were previously securitised such as home mortgages, student loans, auto loans and commercial mortgages.


title: Securitization

text: Recently there have been several lawsuits attributable to the rating of securitizations by the three leading rating agencies. In July, 2009, the USA’s largest public pension fund has filed suit in California state court in connection with $1 billion in losses that it says were caused by "wildly inaccurate" credit ratings from the three leading ratings agencies.


title: Weakest Link

text: Weakest Link (also known as The Weakest Link) is a television game show which first appeared in the United Kingdom on BBC Two on 14 August 2000 and originally ended on 31 March 2012 when its host Anne Robinson completed her contract. The original British version of the show is still aired around the world on BBC Entertainment. The game begins with a team of eight or nine contestants who take turns answering general knowledge questions within a time limit to create chains of correct answers in a row. At the end of each round, the players vote one contestant, "The Weakest Link", out of the game. Once two players are left, they play in a head-to-head contest, with five questions asked to each contestant in turn, to determine the winner.


title: Weakest Link

text: The format has been licensed across the world, with many countries producing their own series of the programme and is the second most popular international franchise, behind only the "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" franchise, which also originated in the UK.


title: Weakest Link

text: The programme sees a group of contestants ranging from five to nine players who will need to work as a team to try to win as much as possible of a maximum cash jackpot by correctly answering general-knowledge questions in a series of rapid-fire rounds.


title: Weakest Link

text: Each round features a money chain of anywhere from five to nine increasing cash values, with a maximum cash target that the team must attempt to reach within a time limit. Questions are asked of the team members sequentially. In the first round, play will typically start with the first player alphabetically or by a random-draw before the game starts. The team can most quickly achieve the target by stringing together a chain of consecutive correct answers, the minimum number of which depends on the number of "links" in the money chain, usually but not always the same as the number of contestants at the start of the show. A correct answer increases the value of the succeeding question, while an incorrect answer breaks the chain, losing all money accumulated in that chain. A contestant can secure the accumulated money in the chain by saying "Bank" before their question is asked, some versions require the contestant to wait to bank until their name is called; doing so however resets the chain to zero and the team must rebuild again. The round ends when the team has either run out of time or banked the target, in which case the round ends prematurely. The target amount is the maximum amount available in the round. If the team banks a total exceeding this amount, it is rounded down to the maximum amount. Only the money that has been banked is taken forward in the game, forming the total prize money available at the end.


title: Weakest Link

text: Each round ends with the team voting off one person from the game. Before the votes are revealed, a voice-over announcer reveals who statistically is the Strongest Link and Weakest Link, determined by how many questions were answered correctly and incorrectly, the amount of money banked and lost, and the total monetary value of the questions asked. The votes are then revealed, followed by inquiry by the host for the reasoning behind the vote, along with berating of the contestants. The person with the most votes is named the Weakest Link regardless of the statistics, is eliminated from the game, and wins nothing. In the event of a tie, the Strongest Link is immediately deemed immune from the vote and must break the tie.


title: Weakest Link

text: This process repeats, with each successive round beginning with the Strongest Link from the last round, or the second-Strongest Link, if the Strongest Link was voted off, and the time limit available to them decreasing usually by 10 or 15 seconds. Once there are two players remaining, they play one final round, where the money banked is multiplied by a certain amount. In some versions, however, the game has gone straight to the head-to-head finale after the final elimination.


title: Weakest Link

text: The final two contestants then compete in a head-to-head round to determine the winner, with the Strongest Link from the last round determining who begins the round. The contestants are alternately asked a series of five questions each. The player who correctly answers the most wins the money accumulated in the game. If there is a draw, the game continues to sudden death, where the first to answer a question correctly over their opponent's incorrect answer wins. The loser, like all other contestants prior, goes home with nothing.


title: Weakest Link

text: Compared with the original format, the others have some changes, making them not the same as the original.


title: Weakest Link

text: In the UK original series, the host is Anne Robinson. Producers chose her with the intention of being both firm to the contestants yet understanding when a contestant gets voted off. However, in producing the show, Robinson began to act cold, harsh and mean to the contestants. Some international hosts like , , , Neena Gupta, Hülya Uğur Tanrıöver, Fiona Coyne, Goedele Liekens, Laurence Boccolini, and went to the BBC Studio for instruction and training purpose (meeting the UK production team and Anne Robinson) to replicate the presenting style.


title: Weakest Link

text: However, the format distributor BBC Worldwide changed the rules and this is not required anymore. As a result, some international hosts are nicer and more relaxed to the contestants. This has changed the whole program style compared with the original BBC series. The first notable example of this change was seen during George Gray's tenure as host in the 2002–03 syndicated version of the American edition; other times where this has happened were in France (2014–15), Turkey (2015, 2019), Finland (2017–18), Cyprus (2017–21), the Netherlands (2019–20), Greece (2019–), the United States (2020–), Australia (2021–22), and the United Kingdom (2021–).


title: Weakest Link

text: The new Dutch host Bridget Maasland is also the first host worldwide not to wear black clothing on every episode. Although she does wear dark and black suits on about half of the shows, she often wears bright colored outfits in the other episodes. Her style of hosting resembles the style Anne Robinson adapted in the later UK shows, asking contestants more about their private lives, let them sing and dance during the voting and chit chat about more than just the mistakes made.


title: Weakest Link

text: The hosting attitude of Jane Lynch who hosted the American edition's 2020 revival was more so that of sarcasm, and snarky - reminiscent of her noted Sue Sylvester character from "Glee".


title: Weakest Link

text: In the second syndicated version of the American version, after the second to last round, the last two contestants do not face the clock and the money tree. Instead, the remaining two contestants go straight into the head-to-head round. In the event the Strongest Link is voted off, the Second-Strongest Link makes the decision as to who goes first.


title: Weakest Link

text: Unlike the original version, the top prize money available increases after each round. The top prize money starts at $25,000 in round 1 and increases by $25,000 per round until round 4. The top prize money in rounds 5 and 6 is set at $250,000 and $500,000, respectively.


title: Weakest Link

text: A minor addition to the game is that of a buzzer added to each contestant's podium. This is used both to bank money (with contestants not only having to say the word "bank" before being asked the question but must also press the buzzer), as well as to reveal the contestant's vote.


title: Weakest Link

text: Some non-gameplay variations were also adapted to the revived series: the contestants no longer handwrite their votes, rather they vote via a touch screen panel, tapping the button of the player they wish to vote off. This screen is also used to present visual information for visual questions - where the host will ask the contestants to identify items that appear on the screen. Additionally, the host will discuss the contestants' mistakes before the vote reveals - with the weakest link being eliminated immediately after the vote reveal. Like season 2 of the syndicated version, once only two contestants remain the game goes straight to the head-to-head round.


title: Weakest Link

text: Changes from this version were featured in the 2021 Australian version - with the top prize being $250,000 and the prize increases for each round being as follows ($10,000, $15,000, $20,000, $30,000, $75,000, $100,000).


title: Weakest Link

text: The latest French version (aired from 2014 to 2015) also does not use the clock and money tree for the final round, and in the penultimate round is the 3-player triple stake round for €15,000 and lasts 90 seconds.


title: Weakest Link

text: In the Dutch version that started in May 2019, just like on the latest French version, round 8 was cut from the format after they aired the show for two weeks. Instead, in round 7, the money triples, and one last player is eliminated after that round. Making the top prize money no longer €10,000, but €9,000. After that, the remaining two contestants go straight into the head-to-head round. However, in the 2nd series, the number of contestants dropped to 7. The top prize money decreased to €8,000, and the 90-second round returned.


title: Weakest Link

text: The format is currently distributed by BBC Studios, the commercial arm of the BBC, following their merger with BBC Worldwide and also is produced by different production companies. Australia was the 1st country to adapt the format; not all the international versions share the same title as UK.


title: Weakest Link

text: As with the original British version, all of the hosts wear black clothing (or sometimes dark colours with black). Most versions also have disciplinarian female hosts, again similar to the British original—with exceptions being Fausto Silva (Brazil), Tasos Tryfonos (Cyprus and Greece), Julien Courbet (France), Riku Nieminen (Finland), Nikolai Fomenko (Russia), Eamon Dunphy (Ireland), Edu Manzano, Allan K. (both Philippines), Shirō Itō (Japan), Pedro Granger (Portugal), Enrico Papi (Italy), Tseng Yang Qing (Taiwan), Baybars Altuntaş (Turkey), George Gray (United States) and Romesh Ranganathan (United Kingdom). Gray, Courbet and Ranganathan are comedians, and those versions were designed to play off comedy.


title: Weakest Link

text: In Croatia, in May 2010, the quiz reached its 1,008th episode, and with the British original is the only version to have reached as many episodes.


title: The Cry (2018 TV series)

text: The Cry is a 2018 television mystery psychological drama series written by Jacquelin Perske and adapted from the 2013 novel of the same name by Helen FitzGerald, which was broadcast on the ABC in Australia and BBC One in the UK. The series stars Jenna Coleman as Joanna Lyndsay, a schoolteacher whose four-month-old baby Noah disappears while she and her fiancé, Alistair (Ewen Leslie), are visiting family in Australia. The series was directed by Glendyn Ivin and produced by Synchronicity Films.


title: The Cry (2018 TV series)

text: Joanna and Alistair are young parents who travel from Scotland to a town in Australia to visit family and fight for custody of Alistair's daughter, Chloe, against his Australian ex-wife, Alexandra. On the drive from Melbourne to the coastal town of Wilde Bay, their baby son Noah goes missing. In the aftermath of the tragedy, under public scrutiny, their relationship collapses and her psychological state disintegrates.


title: The Cry (2018 TV series)

text: "The Cry" is an adaptation of the novel of the same name by Helen FitzGerald. The series is produced by Synchronicity Films, directed by Glendyn Ivin and written for television by Jacquelin Perske.


title: The Cry (2018 TV series)

text: Filming for the series commenced in February 2018, initially taking place in Australia. Filming later moved to Scotland in April 2018. Jenna Coleman, who portrays Joanna in the lead role, completed filming for the series in Australia and Glasgow in May 2018, so that production on the third series of "Victoria" could commence.


title: The Cry (2018 TV series)

text: "The Cry" comprises four episodes and premiered in the UK on BBC One on 30 September 2018. The series premiered in Australia on ABC on 3 February 2019.


title: Electric potential energy

text: Electric potential energy is a potential energy (measured in joules) that results from conservative Coulomb forces and is associated with the configuration of a particular set of point charges within a defined system. An "object" may be said to have electric potential energy by virtue of either its own electric charge or its relative position to other electrically charged "objects".


title: Electric potential energy

text: The term "electric potential energy" is used to describe the potential energy in systems with time-variant electric fields, while the term "electrostatic potential energy" is used to describe the potential energy in systems with time-invariant electric fields.


title: Electric potential energy

text: The electric potential energy of a system of point charges is defined as the work required to assemble this system of charges by bringing them close together, as in the system from an infinite distance. Alternatively, the electric potential energy of any given charge or system of charges is termed as the total work done by an external agent in bringing the charge or the system of charges from infinity to the present configuration without undergoing any acceleration.


title: Electric potential energy

text: The SI unit of electric potential energy is joule (named after the English physicist James Prescott Joule). In the CGS system the erg is the unit of energy, being equal to 10 Joules. Also electronvolts may be used, 1 eV = 1.602×10 Joules.


title: Electric potential energy

text: The electrostatic potential energy, "U", of one point charge "q" at position r in the presence of a point charge "Q", taking an infinite separation between the charges as the reference position, is:


title: Electric potential energy

text: where formula_1 is the Coulomb constant, "r" is the distance between the point charges "q" and "Q", and "q" and "Q" are the charges (not the absolute values of the charges—i.e., an electron would have a negative value of charge when placed in the formula). The following outline of proof states the derivation from the definition of electric potential energy and Coulomb's law to this formula.


title: Electric potential energy

text: The electrostatic potential energy, "U", of one point charge "q" in the presence of "n" point charges "Q", taking an infinite separation between the charges as the reference position, is:


title: Electric potential energy

text: where formula_1 is the Coulomb constant, "r" is the distance between the point charges "q" and "Q", and "q" and "Q" are the assigned values of the charges.


title: Electric potential energy

text: The electrostatic potential energy "U" stored in a system of "N" charges "q", "q", …, "q" at positions r, r, …, r respectively, is:


title: Electric potential energy

text: where, for each "i" value, Φ(r) is the electrostatic potential due to all point charges except the one at r, and is equal to:


title: Electric potential energy

text: The electrostatic potential energy of a system containing only one point charge is zero, as there are no other sources of electrostatic force against which an external agent must do work in moving the point charge from infinity to its final location.


title: Electric potential energy

text: A common question arises concerning the interaction of a point charge with its own electrostatic potential. Since this interaction doesn't act to move the point charge itself, it doesn't contribute to the stored energy of the system.


title: Electric potential energy

text: Consider bringing a point charge, "q", into its final position near a point charge, "Q". The electric potential Φ(r) due to "Q" is


title: Electric potential energy

text: The electrostatic potential energy of a system of three charges should not be confused with the electrostatic potential energy of "Q" due to two charges "Q" and "Q", because the latter doesn't include the electrostatic potential energy of the system of the two charges "Q" and "Q".


title: Electric potential energy

text: The energy density, or energy per unit volume, formula_11, of the electrostatic field of a continuous charge distribution is:


title: Electric potential energy

text: & = \frac{1}{2}\int \limits_{\text{all space}} \varepsilon_0(\mathbf{\nabla}\cdot{\mathbf{E}})\Phi \, dV


title: Electric potential energy

text: Some elements in a circuit can convert energy from one form to another. For example, a resistor converts electrical energy to heat. This is known as the Joule effect. A capacitor stores it in its electric field. The total electrostatic potential energy stored in a capacitor is given by


title: Electric potential energy

text: where "C" is the capacitance, "V" is the electric potential difference, and "Q" the charge stored in the capacitor.


title: Electric potential energy

text: The total electrostatic potential energy may also be expressed in terms of the electric field in the form


title: Electric potential energy

text: where formula_21 is the electric displacement field within a dielectric material and integration is over the entire volume of the dielectric.


title: Electric potential energy

text: "(A virtual experiment based on the energy transfert between capacitor plates reveals that an additional term must be taken into account when the electrostatic energy is expressed in terms of the electric field and displacement vectors ."


title: Electric potential energy

text: "While this extra energy cancels when dealing with insulators, in general it cannot be ignored, as for instance with semiconductors.)"


title: Electric potential energy

text: The total electrostatic potential energy stored within a charged dielectric may also be expressed in terms of a continuous volume charge, formula_22,


title: Electric potential energy

text: These latter two expressions are valid only for cases when the smallest increment of charge is zero (formula_24) such as dielectrics in the presence of metallic electrodes or dielectrics containing many charges.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The New York Times Building is a 52-story skyscraper at 620 Eighth Avenue, between 40th and 41st Streets, on the west side of Midtown Manhattan in New York City. Its chief tenant is the New York Times Company, publisher of "The New York Times". The building is tall to its pinnacle, with a roof height of . Designed by Renzo Piano and Fox & Fowle, the building was developed by the New York Times Company, Forest City Ratner, and ING Real Estate. The interiors are divided into separate ownership units, with the Times Company operating the lower office floors and Brookfield Properties operating the upper floors. , the New York Times Building is tied with the Chrysler Building as the eleventh-tallest building in the city.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The building is cruciform in plan and has a steel-framed superstructure with a braced mechanical core. It consists of the office tower on the west side of the land lot as well as four-story podium on the east side. Its facade is largely composed of a glass curtain wall, in front of which are ceramic rods that deflect heat and glare. The steel framing and bracing is exposed at the four corner "notches" of the building. The New York Times Building is designed as a green building. The lower stories have a lobby, retail space, and the "Times" newsroom surrounding an enclosed garden. The other stories are used as office space.


title: The New York Times Building

text: During the 1980s and 1990s, the city and state governments of New York proposed a merchandise mart for the site as part of a wide-ranging redevelopment of Times Square. In 1999, the New York Times Company offered to develop its new headquarters on the mart's site. Piano and Fox & Fowle were selected following an architectural design competition, and the land was acquired in 2003 following disputes with existing landowners. The building was completed in 2007 for over $1 billion. The Times Company's space was operated by W. P. Carey from 2009 to 2019; meanwhile, Forest City bought out ING's interest and was then acquired by Brookfield Properties in 2018.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The New York Times Building is at 620 Eighth Avenue, occupying the eastern side of the avenue between 40th Street and 41st Street, one block west of Times Square in the Midtown Manhattan neighborhood of New York City. The land lot is rectangular and covers . It has a frontage of on Eighth Avenue to the west and on both 40th Street to the south and 41st Street to the north. The site takes up the western half of its city block, which is bounded by Seventh Avenue to the east. The topography of the site generally slopes down from east to west.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The New York Times Building is near Eleven Times Square and the Empire Theatre to the north, the City University of New York's Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism to the east, and the Port Authority Bus Terminal to the west. The site is directly bounded on two sides by New York City Subway tunnels. An entrance to the New York City Subway's 42nd Street/Port Authority Bus Terminal station, served by the , is next to the building's base.


title: The New York Times Building

text: Prior to the Times Building's construction, the site was occupied by a mixture of buildings. The site had been proposed for redevelopment since 1981 as the southern half of an unbuilt merchandise mart (see ). At Eighth Avenue and 40th Street was a six-story building erected in 1963, which housed the Taylor Business Institute and the SAE Institute. The address 260 West 41st Street contained Sussex House, an eight-story, 140-room dormitory, as well as a mural advertising garment store Seely Shoulder Shapes. Behind it was a 16-story office building at 265 West 40th Street. Sex shops, prostitution, and loitering were prevalent on the 41st Street side of the site. Five sex shops had been relocated from the site before the building's development, out of 55 businesses total.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The New York Times Building was designed by Renzo Piano and Fox & Fowle and was developed by the New York Times Company, Forest City Ratner, and ING Real Estate. It was Piano's first design in New York City. Gensler designed the interior under the supervision of Margo Grant Walsh. AMEC was the main contractor for the core and shell, while Turner Construction was the contractor for the "Times" space in the lower section of the building. Other companies involved with the project included structural engineer Thornton Tomasetti, wind consultant RWDI, sealant supplier Dow Corning Corporation, and steel supplier ArcelorMittal. The mechanical, electrical, and plumbing system was designed by Flack + Kurtz. Officially, the New York City Economic Development Corporation owns the site.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The Times Building is 52 stories tall with one basement, covering a gross floor area of . It has two major condominiums of office space: a lower section operated by the New York Times Company and an upper section operated by Brookfield Properties, which took over Forest City Ratner's stake in 2019. The "Times" space on the 2nd to 27th stories covers , about 58 percent of the office space, while the 29th to 52nd stories spans , covering the remaining 42 percent. The lobby and the mechanical spaces on the 28th and 51st stories are shared by the building's major operators. The top floor is high. The Times Building rises from the street to its roof, while the exterior curtain wall rises to and its mast rises to . , including its mast, the New York Times Building is the eleventh-tallest building in the city, tied with the Chrysler Building.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The Times Building was designed as a green building. During the building's construction, the architects created a mockup of a portion of the building to test out its environmental features. A yearlong study by the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab and Center for the Built Environment found the Times Building had significant reductions in annual electricity use, utilized less than half the heating energy, and decreased the peak electric demand compared to similarly sized office buildings. The developers did not wish to achieve Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification, since that would have required extra expenditures, such as keeping track of construction debris.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The Times Building consists of two sections: the 52-story tower on the western portion of the site and a four-story podium occupying the eastern portion. The tower section covers about , with dimensions of . The corners of the tower are notched, creating a cruciform layout. The outer columns on the west and east elevations are recessed several feet into the building. The center bays of the north and south elevations are cantilevered slightly past the outermost columns to the north and south. The podium measures . The building contains a single basement level underneath the entire site, extending below grade.


title: The New York Times Building

text: There are three office entrances, one each on Eighth Avenue, 40th Street, and 41st Street. The facade consists of a glass curtain wall, with ceramic rods mounted on aluminum frames in front of the curtain wall. The facade was made by Benson Global, while the rods were subcontracted to a German sewer-pipe manufacturer. In designing the building, Piano said he was influenced by the massing of the Seagram Building, also in Midtown.


title: The New York Times Building

text: There are about 186,000 ceramic rods in the building. The rods, measuring in diameter, are mounted about in front of the curtain wall and are carried on aluminum "combs". The rods are made of aluminum silicate, a ceramic chosen for its durability and cost-effectiveness. The rods are intended to deflect heat and glare even if the glass panes were not tinted, and they can change color with the sun and weather. The rod spacing increases from the base to the top, adding transparency for the top of the usable space. At each story, the rods contain a slight gap at eye level. The rods extend about above the primary roof. On the north and south elevations, the screens extend slightly past the notched corners. The ceramic rods also rise to , above the main roof.


title: The New York Times Building

text: On the Eighth Avenue elevation is a sign with the logo of "The New York Times", designed by Michael Bierut of Pentagram. Measuring long, the logo consists of the "Times" name in the Fraktur font at a 10,116-point size. The logo itself is made of 959 custom aluminum sleeves measuring about in diameter; these are wrapped around the ceramic rods. Metal halide lamps are also mounted on the facade in front of the rods. They are painted yellow to resemble the taxis of New York City.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The ceramic rods have attracted climbers, in part because the rods were originally spaced closely together. Shortly after completion, in mid-2008, three men illegally and independently climbed the ceramic rods on the facade. On June 5, 2008, professional climber Alain Robert climbed the north elevation to protest global warming; a second climber (Rey Clarke) scaled the west elevation later that day. The third climber, a Connecticut man, scaled the building on July 9 to protest the terrorist group Al-Qaeda. As a result of these incidents, some of the ceramic rods were removed, particularly on the north and south elevations, and glass panels were installed to deter climbing. People still climbed the building in later years, including in 2012 and in 2020.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The glass curtain wall is composed of double-glazed low emissivity panels that extend from the floor to the ceiling of each story. The panels generally measure wide and tall. The use of floor-to-ceiling glass was meant to signify the transparency of the media. It also maximizes natural light and the physical transparency of the facade. The window panes are generally protected by the ceramic rods. Since the rods contain a small gap at each story, the glass panels contain a small ceramic frit near these gaps. At ground level, there are glass storefronts, which allows pedestrians outside to see into the lobby.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The notched corners contain exposed steel and lack screens, a design feature that represents the ideal of journalistic transparency. Instead, the corners contain one- and two-story-high rods, which serve as bracing and are designed in a pattern resembling the letter "X" (see ).


title: The New York Times Building

text: Underneath the site is durable Hartland bedrock. Before the tower was constructed, the contractors made three sets of borings to extract samples of the composition of the ground. Directly underneath the tower portion of the site, the samples generally contained poor-quality weathered and decomposed rock at a depth of up to . The borings on other parts of the site and underneath the surrounding sidewalk generally contained competent rock at a shallow depth, which increased in quality at greater depths. Furthermore, the northern lot line is adjacent to the IRT Flushing Line subway tunnel (used by the ) below 41st Street, as well as a pedestrian passageway at a shallower level. The western lot line is adjacent to the IND Eighth Avenue Line subway tunnel (used by the ) under Eighth Avenue.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The foundation had to be capable of supporting of pressure. Most of the foundation is on intermediate- or high-quality rock and uses spread footings capable of . Caissons with rock sockets are installed under the southeast corner of the tower section, where the weakest rock exists. There are forty-two caissons with a diameter of , which extend between deep. They are reinforced with steel bars and could hold of vertical pressure. They are filled with concrete with a compressive strength of .


title: The New York Times Building

text: The building contains a superstructure with of steel. More than 95 percent of the beams are made of recycled steel. Steel was chosen over concrete because it allows flexible office spaces. The superstructure contains box columns measuring in diameter. The flanges range from thick at the base to thick at the top stories, giving a lighter appearance. The beams are covered with intumescent coatings for fireproofing. The floor slabs are a composite consisting of of concrete on a metal deck. They are designed to carry live loads of , as well as partitions weighing up to . The "Times" stories contain a raised floor structural system, with the finished office floors being above the floor slabs. Conversely, on the upper stories, the finished office floors are the slabs themselves.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The superstructure of the tower is braced to the mechanical core, which measures . This allows the perimeter of the tower stories to be no more than from the core. The lower section of the tower, containing the "Times" offices, contains two sets of bracing frames that surround the core from north to south. The top 21 stories contain a single bracing line extends from north to south. There are outriggers at the mechanical floors on the 28th and 51st stories. "X"-shaped braces are used at the tower's corners because the elevator core limits the extent to which west-east bracing lines could be used. The "X"-braces were pre-tensioned during construction to compensate for the shortening of columns. The braces are built in pairs, rather than as single rods, which would have required larger diameters.


title: The New York Times Building

text: On the north and south elevations, the center bays are cantilevered about past the perimeter columns. The floor girders of the cantilevered sections are arranged into three framing lines: two at the outer ends of the cantilevers and one at the center. The central girder on each floor is supported by a Vierendeel truss. The outer girders are connected to the perimeter columns by diagonal beams and to each other by columns. Because the "Times" stories have raised floors, the girders on these stories protrude through the facade in an offset "dogleg".


title: The New York Times Building

text: The 51st-story mechanical space contains elevator rooms, air-conditioning, lighting, and telecommunications equipment, as well as a control area for the building's mechanical services. The main roof above the 52nd story consists of an asphalt covering, above which are concrete pavers on stone ballast. The steel mast atop the building is about tall and is made of carbon fiber, allowing it to bend during heavy winds without snapping. It extends from a circular baseplate on the 51st story, where it measures wide, and tapers to a width of at its pinnacle. The mast is also supported from the roof of the 52nd story. To support the mast, trusses were designed within the floor slabs on the 51st and 52nd stories, and vertical trusses were used to shift the weight of the mast to the columns below.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The New York Times Building has a cogeneration plant, which can provide 40 percent of the building's energy requirements. It is variously cited as being capable of or . The plant is in a mechanical room on the top floor of the podium, at the far eastern end. The cogeneration plant is powered by two natural gas-fired engines. The New York Times Building is also connected to the main New York City power grid, which serves as a backup power source. Because of a disagreement with Consolidated Edison (Con Ed), the cogeneration plant is not connected to the grid. The plant runs at 85 or 89 percent efficiency.


title: The New York Times Building

text: Heat is generated as a byproduct of the cogeneration plant's operation and is used to provide hot water. The recovered hot water is used in the building's perimeter heating system during the winter, while it is fed into the building's chillers during the summer. The New York Times Building contains a single-stage absorption chiller that is capable of . The building also has five electric centrifugal chillers of each, which serve the building's central chilled-water plant. The air from the chillers is delivered from chillers at . It travels to an underfloor air distribution system under each of the "Times" stories and to the ceilings of the top 21 stories. The steam for heating the building itself is purchased from Con Ed rather than being generated on-site, since the architects determined on-site heat generation to be more expensive. The cellar and the podium's roof contain air handling units with steam coils that take low-pressure steam.


title: The New York Times Building

text: There are over 18,000 lighting fixtures in the offices, all of which can be dimmed. The electrical ballast in each fixture contains a computer chip, which adjusts the lighting based on natural light levels and on whether the office is occupied. There are also automatic shades, which change automatically based on the sun's position, sunlight glare, and interior heat gain. The shades can also be manually overridden. The movable shades reduce energy consumption by about 13 percent and reduce solar heat gain by 30 percent in the "Times" portion of the building. The upper stories have two data closets and two electric closets each. In addition, the building has emergency generators throughout.


title: The New York Times Building

text: There are 32 elevators total: 24 for passengers and eight for freight. The elevators can run as quickly as . The building's mechanical core contains four banks of elevators with seven shafts each. The lower stories are served by three elevators from each bank, while the upper stories are served by four elevators from each bank. The elevators contain a destination dispatch system, wherein passengers request their desired floor before entering the cab. Stairways on the tower's western and eastern sides also connect each of the tower stories.


title: The New York Times Building

text: When the New York Times Building was built, the ground floor was designed with a lobby, stores, auditorium, and central garden. Two restaurant spaces were also placed on Eighth Avenue. The retail space covers or of retail and was originally operated by Forest City Ratner. Under the building's lease agreement, space could not be leased to any fast-food or discount stores; educational centers; or any firm that could attract visitors "without appointment", including medical offices, employment agencies, welfare agencies, or court uses. Furthermore, the United Nations and most governmental agencies of any kind were banned if they could attract visitors "without appointment".


title: The New York Times Building

text: The ground-floor lobby includes an art installation called "Moveable Type," created by artist Ben Rubin and statistics professor Mark Hansen. The work consists of 280 small electronic screens arranged on either of the lobby's two walls, or 560 total. The screens on each wall are arranged in a grid measuring , with forty columns and seven rows. They display fragments from both the "Times" archives and current news stories. The lobby is supported by exposed intumescent beams and contains oak floors and full-height glass windows. Also inside the podium is The Times Center, which includes a 378-seat auditorium for events. The Times Center also includes a meeting space.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The Times Center and lobby overlook a garden at the center of the podium, which is visible from the lobby but closed to the public. The garden is surrounded by a glass wall measuring high and 70 feet across on three sides. It contains seven paper birch trees measuring tall. The garden originally had a moss glen, but this was replaced in 2010 with ferns and grasses. The birch trees are placed on the northwestern side of the garden, while the mosses were placed on hills in the rest of the space. A walkway made of Ipe wood runs around the garden, and doors lead to the garden from the north and south sides. The walls of the atrium are transparent, resulting in numerous incidents where birds flew into the walls.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The "Times" owned the 2nd to 27th stories but leased out the top six stories of that space before the building's opening. Within the "Times" section of the building, the structural floor slabs are below the finished office floors. The girders at the building's core, as well as utilities and mechanical systems, are placed beneath the raised floors. Air is delivered from under the raised floors. Air enters most of the office spaces through diffusers near each workstation, and perforated floor tiles are used in the "Times" conference rooms. The "Times" offices can also use outdoor air for ventilation, and the air is generally ventilated through the ceiling. The perimeter of each "Times" story has a ceiling high, but most of the office space has a ceiling high. The ceiling is divided into a grid of tiles measuring , aligned with the vertical mullions of the facade.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The "Times" generally arranges its offices in an open plan. The 2nd through 4th stories contain the "Times" newsroom, which extends into the podium and overlooks the garden. The podium also accommodated the "Times" web-based staff. Stairs with red banisters connect the newsroom's stories, while a skylight illuminates the workspaces. Throughout the building, the "Times" offices mainly contain cherry wood furniture. The desks of the "Times" offices had gypsum-board accents, which themselves are colored in a scarlet red tone, nicknamed "Renzo Red". Copy writers' desks are smaller and have laminate desks without partitions. Two red staircases, one on each side of the building, connect the "Times" offices. There is also a double-height cafeteria in the "Times" section of the building. To encourage interactions between staffers, the offices were generally not assigned to specific workers, and various furniture was scattered throughout; even the staircases are designed as wide-open spaces.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The "Times" space is decorated with about 560 black-and-white prints from the paper's archive. The conference rooms are named after notable figures, supplement by images from the "Times" archive. There are about 750 distinct photographs, which illustrate not only the conference rooms but also spaces such as mechanical rooms, electrical closets, and restrooms. The elevator lobbies on each story have different pieces of contemporary furniture, as well as a set of ten video screens that display images from that day's newspaper. Lessees within the upper portion of the "Times" space, such as law firms Goodwin Procter and Seyfarth Shaw, decorated their offices with more ornate finishes to attract clients.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The top 21 stories were designed to be leased to tenants. The rental office floors generally use chilled-water air handlers and receive both cooling and ventilation from the ceiling. On the 29th through 50th stories, the core girders are not depressed below the floor slab, but they can support a raised floor of up to . The minimum height of the office space is , though some parts of the ceiling can be up to high.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The upper floors were generally marketed to law firms. The spaces were, for the most part, also designed by Gensler. Since law firms generally did not require the open-plan layouts that the "Times" used, Gensler modified the upper stories' floor-plate dimensions to accommodate more attorneys in the same space. According to the firm's managing principal Robin Klehr Avia, this was done "so you don't have a lot of support areas without enough windows". Some tenants did not use the 5-foot-wide modules that the "Times" used. Gensler designed several tenants' offices with furniture and color schemes similar to those in the "Times" offices.


title: The New York Times Building

text: "The New York Times", founded in 1851, was first housed in 113 Nassau Street in Lower Manhattan. It moved to 138 Nassau Street, the site of what is now the Potter Building, in 1854. The "Times" moved to a neighboring five-story edifice at 41 Park Row in 1858. Partially prompted by the development of the neighboring New York Tribune Building, the "Times" replaced its building in 1889 with a new 13-story building at the same site, one that remains in use by Pace University with some modifications.


title: The New York Times Building

text: In 1905, the paper moved to One Times Square at 42nd Street and Broadway. The area surrounding the new headquarters was renamed from Longacre Square to Times Square. The "Times" outgrew the slender Times Tower within a decade and, in 1913, moved into the Times Annex at 229 West 43rd Street. By 1999, the "Times" operated at six locations in Manhattan and had a printing plant in Queens.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The Urban Development Corporation (UDC), an agency of the New York state government, had proposed redeveloping the area around a portion of West 42nd Street in 1981. Among the UDC's plans was a garment merchandise mart on Eighth Avenue between 40th and 42nd Streets, opposite Port Authority Bus Terminal. The project was to be completed by the Times Square Redevelopment Corporation, comprising members of the New York state and city governments. David Morse and Richard Reinis were selected in April 1982 to develop the mart, but they were removed from the project that November due to funding issues. Subsequently, the state and city disputed over the replacement development team, leading the city to withdraw from the partnership in August 1983. The state and city reached a compromise on the development team that October, wherein the mart would be developed by Tishman Speyer, operated by Trammell Crow, and funded by Equitable Life Assurance.


title: The New York Times Building

text: Kohn Pedersen Fox designed a 20-story structure with for apparel and computer showrooms. The building would have a limestone and granite facade, a wide arch with a clock spanning 41st Street, arched entrances on Eighth Avenue, and a set of pavilions with ten pyramids on the roof. The proposal was complicated by the fact that developer Paul Milstein wanted to build a 36-story hotel and office building on the northern half of the site, north of what is now the "Times" building. Kennedy Enterprises was selected to operate a smaller mart in 1987. Chemical Bank had considered occupying office space at the mart before withdrawing in 1989. The mart plan was never completed because of a weakened market.


title: The New York Times Building

text: By mid-1999, state and city officials were planning a request for proposals for the southern half of the merchandise mart site. The "Times" parent company, the New York Times Company, proposed a headquarters tower, citing its need to enlarge its operations. If this was not possible, the company would keep its headquarters at 43rd Street but move some jobs to New Jersey. In October 1999, the "Times" reported that its parent company was negotiating for the site. Though the site was highly visible due to the low stature of the Port Authority Bus Terminal to the west, it was also at the extreme corner of both the traditional Times Square area to the north and the Garment District to the south. Nevertheless, as architect Robert A. M. Stern wrote, the New York Times Company likely perceived the site's fringe location as a beneficial attribute. The new site was not commonly considered to be part of Times Square, leading Paul Goldberger of "The New Yorker" to say that the plan "has implications that go beyond the sentimental".


title: The New York Times Building

text: The "Times" selected Forest City Ratner Companies as the developer for its Eighth Avenue tower in February 2000. The following month, the "Times" began negotiating with the city and state. The "Times" wanted to pay $75 million and a two-thirds deduction in real estate taxes, but the state wanted $125 million for the site and the city wanted the "Times" to pay full taxes. Some commentators wrote about how the "Times" had opposed corporate tax relief despite seeking such relief for itself. The parties signed a nonbinding agreement in June 2000, wherein the "Times" agreed to pay $100 million. The "Times" was to occupy half of the planned tower, a single unit covering the second through 28th floors. The remainder of the space would be operated by Forest City and leased to office tenants. At the time, other media headquarters were being developed nearby, such as the Hearst Tower on 57th Street and the Condé Nast Building at 4 Times Square.


title: The New York Times Building

text: Robert A. M. Stern, his colleague Paul Whalen, and Naresh Kapadia of the 42nd Street Development Project created a set of design guidelines in advance of an architectural design competition for the building. They also created a model conforming to ideals set by the chairman of the New York City Planning Commission. The design guidelines were printed in a 48-page program with a statement by "Times" architecture critic Herbert Muschamp. Times Company vice chairman Michael Golden said of the design: "We need to contribute to the skyline of New York. We don't want to have people say, 'Gee, The New York Times built a four-story brick warehouse in Manhattan.'"


title: The New York Times Building

text: In September 2000, four architects submitted bids for the new tower's design: Renzo Piano, Norman Foster, César Pelli, and the partnership of Frank Gehry and David Childs. Piano called for a rectangular tower rising from a large podium; Foster proposed a right triangle tapering toward the top; Pelli outlined a glass tower with several chamfers; and the Gehry/Childs partnership planned a structure with billowing sheets of glass on the facade. The Gehry/Childs partnership was widely speculated in the media to be the front-runner, but Gehry was worried that the integrity of his design would be compromised in later revisions. As a result, he and Childs withdrew their plan from consideration. Ultimately, the "Times" selected Piano's proposal in October 2000, and it selected Gensler as the interior architect in February 2001. Piano's plan called for a structure with a ceramic screen rising to and a mast rising to . Fox & Fowle was selected as Piano's co-architect, focusing on smaller design details and costs.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The Empire State Development Corporation (ESDC) had, since the late 1990s, tried to condemn ten lots on the site through eminent domain, but some existing landlords had sued to stop the condemnation. A state court rejected the landlords' claim and, in February 2001, the New York Court of Appeals denied an appeal. The "Times" and Forest City Ratner negotiated terms of the project, in which the "Times" would receive $26.1 million in tax breaks. The company would lease the site from the state for $85.6 million over 99 years, considerably below market value. However, its payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) would be equivalent to the site's full property tax assessments.


title: The New York Times Building

text: In September 2001, the ESDC scheduled a public hearing for the project. Following the September 11 attacks, which occurred in the meantime, the "Times" reaffirmed its commitment to a new headquarters. At the hearing, many large landlords expressed their support for the new "Times" headquarters, citing the loss of office space that had been caused by the collapse of the World Trade Center during the attacks. The existing property owners opposed the condemnation, saying that the block was no longer legally a "blighted" area. That December, the ESDC was authorized to condemn the properties on the site. If the acquisition cost exceeded $85.6 million, the additional cost would be covered by taxpayer funds. By law, the ESDC first had to offer to buy the land from the owners, using the condemnation process only as a last resort.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The "Times" publicly announced plans for the building on December 13, 2001. Piano had originally intended to include an open piazza at the base, but the revised plans called for a tower rising directly from Eighth Avenue, with the "Times" newsroom surrounding a garden. The main roof would have its own garden and antenna mast. The tower retained its planned glass curtain wall, but the structural system was strengthened. Paul Goldberger wrote that the building, the largest New York City development proposed since the September 11 attacks, "would have drawn plenty of attention even if it had been just another corporate box".


title: The New York Times Building

text: Gary Barnett of Intell Development, one of the landowners on the site, filed a lawsuit that December, alleging that the "Times" had engaged in "fraud, bad faith, and collusion against the taxpayers of the city" by taking tax breaks. Barnett was joined by five other owners who wanted to build their own structure on the land. During the lawsuit, "The Village Voice" reported that taxpayer funds would need to cover an additional $79 million of the "Times" site's cost. A New York state judge ruled against Barnett and his co-plaintiffs in August 2002. Over the following year, the state evicted some 55 businesses on the site. The "Times" itself reported that the state had only provided modest compensation to displaced property owners. The Supreme Court of the United States declined to hear a challenge brought by the landowners in February 2003. That September, the state had assembled the site and the developers started razing existing buildings. Forest City and ING Real Estate held a 42 percent leasehold stake while the New York Times Company owned the remaining 58 percent.


title: The New York Times Building

text: In mid-2003, Forest City announced it would request $400 million in tax-free Liberty bonds, allocated for September 11 recovery efforts, to finance the building's construction. Forest City claimed it could not finance its portion of the tower. This request, along with a similar one for the Bank of America Tower three blocks northeast, received public criticism. By October 2003, the construction of the headquarters had been delayed by a year. Forest City had not been able to secure an anchor tenant for its portion of the building, and the Liberty-bond negotiations between Forest City and the state and city governments had stalled. By that time, Forest City had reduced its request to $150 million. ESDC head Charles A. Gargano reportedly held an unfavorable view of Forest City's application for bonds. If financing could not be obtained before construction started in 2004, the project would have to be canceled.


title: The New York Times Building

text: After failing to secure Liberty bonds, the developers applied to GMAC Commercial Mortgage Corporation for financing. GMAC provided $320 million in construction funding for the project in July 2004. "Times" officials predicted that work would start in the middle of that year. That November, the "Times" sold its old 229 West 43rd Street building to Tishman Speyer for $175 million, though the paper planned to remain at that building for the time being. This prompted criticism from some of the site's former landowners, and "The Village Voice" said the proceeds from the sale "wiped out the need for much, if not all, of the taxpayer money the "Times" asked for". According to the "Voice", the "Times" had predicted that its 43rd Street building would have sold for $45 million in 1999.


title: The New York Times Building

text: Work began on the new "Times" building in late 2004, after financing had been secured. Civetta Cousins Joint Venture was hired as the foundation contractor, and work started in August or September 2004. Forest City's executive vice president MaryAnne Gilmartin said the development would conclude a revitalization of the western extremities of Midtown Manhattan. The first steel was erected starting in April 2005, and the foundation was finished that July. Work was slightly delayed during the middle of that year due to a labor strike among ironworkers. The steelwork had reached a height of 400 feet by October 2005. By then, ten of the eleven former landowners were requesting that the city and state governments give them additional compensation, as they alleged their land had been seized at well below market value. The eleventh landowner had been satisfied with a settlement.


title: The New York Times Building

text: A groundbreaking ceremony took place in late 2005. The building still had several hundred thousand square feet of vacant office space, in part due to the higher rent in Midtown compared to Lower Manhattan. Real-estate industry executives also expressed uncertainty that architectural renderings of the ceramic curtain wall, and the site's location near the Port Authority Bus Terminal, would be a drawback for tenants. To advertise the upper stories, Ratner hired photographer Annie Leibovitz to photograph the tower's construction. During construction, in March 2006, a rod fell from the tower and dented the roof of a passing car, slightly injuring its occupants. The steel superstructure was topped out during July 2006. The mast was installed later that year. By that October, the facade had been installed to the 42nd floor and interior finishes were being placed on lower stories.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The first office tenant at the New York Times Building was law firm Seyfarth Shaw, which leased the 31st to 33rd stories in May 2006. Law firm Covington & Burling then leased the 39th to 43rd stories, while law firm Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt signed for the 36th and 37th stories. Investment firm Legg Mason signed a lease in August 2006 for the 45th to 50th stories, committing to develop the roof garden and a conference center on the 52nd story. Simultaneously, Forest City also announced its intention to buy ING's stake in the ground-story retail and upper-story office space. By late 2006, there was strong demand for office space in the building, particularly among law firms, and the "Times" had hired CBRE Group to market the 23rd to 27th stories.


title: The New York Times Building

text: Goodwin Procter leased the 23rd through 27th, 29th, and 30th stories in March 2007. The 38th floor was taken that April by Korean architecture firm Samoo Architects & Engineers and developer JP Properties, while Judicial Arbitration and Mediation Services took the 34th floor. The first "New York Times" employees started moving into the building by May 2007. The following month, on June 11, the "Times" shifted its publishing operations from 43rd Street to its new Eighth Avenue headquarters. "Times" reporter David W. Dunlap wrote that Piano had described the new building as having "lightness, transparency and immateriality", which intentionally did not fit the traditional image of the "old-fashioned newspaper". The Eighth Avenue building officially opened on November 19, 2007. In total, the structure was projected to cost over $1 billion. In two separate incidents in December 2007 and January 2008, several window panes were cracked by wind gusts.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The Japanese company Muji opened a store at the base during May 2008. The four other retail spaces were leased by grocery store Dean & DeLuca, Japanese restaurant Inakaya, Italian restaurant Montenapo by Bice, and a roadside-themed cafe. Also in 2008, the 44th story was occupied by solar energy company First Solar and the Flemish Government. After the tower was scaled several times in mid-2008, workers removed some of the facade's ceramic rods and added glass panels to deter climbing. Piano supported the modifications, but he said that climbing was not even a consideration during the planning process, even though "Times" executives had focused extensively on reducing the tower's vulnerability to terrorism. By the end of that year, the New York Times Company was facing financial shortfalls and sought to mortgage its building to refinance debt. By January 2009, the "Times" was negotiating to sell the nineteen stories that it occupied, the 2nd through 21st stories, to W. P. Carey for $225 million. In exchange, the "Times" would lease back its floors for $24 million a year for 10 years. The leaseback was finalized in March 2009.


title: The New York Times Building

text: Part of the 44th story was sublet in 2010 to Kepos Capital, which occupied the space for eight years. By late 2013, the "Times" wished to lease out the 21st story, the only part of the building that it still owned. Technology company Bounce Exchange leased the 21st story in early 2015 from the "Times", which had previously housed its sales and marketing department there"."


title: The New York Times Building

text: In December 2016, the "Times" announced it was subletting at least eight floors, totaling , to save the costs of occupying that space. Gensler was hired to reorganize the space, including removing some corner offices that belonged to high-ranking executives such as the CEO and the publisher. Over half of the sublet space, covering , was sublet a little more than a year later to financial firm Liquidnet. During late 2018, British outsourcing firm Williams Lea Tag signed a 10-year lease for of space on the 10th story. Covington & Burling also expanded to the 44th story that year.


title: The New York Times Building

text: The "Times" announced in February 2018 that it would repurchase the building's leasehold from W. P. Carey. Brookfield Properties, which had acquired Forest City Ratner, refinanced the building's first floor and the 28th- through 50th-story condominiums in late 2018 for $635 million. The loan was provided by Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, Barclays Capital, and Citi; it consisted of a $515 million commercial mortgage-backed security and a $120 million junior note. Some $115 million in mezzanine debt was also provided. The "Times" subsequently exercised its option on the leasehold in late 2019 for $245 million.


title: The New York Times Building

text: When Piano was selected for the Times Building, architectural critic Martin Filler called the selection "very disappointing", saying that "a lot of [Piano's] commercial work is really terrible". Herbert Muschamp, architecture critic for the "Times", wrote that Piano was the "world's greatest living practitioner of what I call 'normative' architecture", though he criticized the base as having "too little contrast with the city outside". After the September 11 attacks, Muschamp wrote, """There may be no more constructive way to fill the architectural void [of the World Trade Center] than to revisit the history of progressive architecture in this town", including the planned Times Building and Hearst Tower. "Times" design writer Steven Heller lamented the move, saying: "The Piano building will be a showpiece, not a home."


title: The New York Times Building

text: "Architecture" magazine wrote in early 2002 that, with its paucity of bright signage that characterized other Times Square buildings, "The architect has chosen to speak to the "Times", not to Times Square." Just before the start of construction, Justin Davidson of "Newsday" wrote that "lightness is both a metaphoric and an architectural goal" in the building's design.


title: The New York Times Building

text: In 2006, Paul Goldberger wrote for "The New Yorker" that the Times Building "comes off as dainty, even flimsy, as if inside this huge tower a little building were struggling to get out", in contrast with Piano's then-recent Morgan Library & Museum expansion. James Gardner of the "New York Sun" said that he did not believe the Times Building to be "a bad building" but that the ceramic bars "becomes the sort of pure ornamentalism that betrays so much contemporary architecture that overzealously aspires to appear purely functional". When the building was completed, "Times" architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff wrote: "Depending on your point of view, the Times Building can thus be read as a poignant expression of nostalgia or a reassertion of the paper's highest values as it faces an uncertain future. Or, more likely, a bit of both." Suzanne Stephens of "Architectural Record" wrote that the building "seems strangely bland in New York’s architecturally variegated context". Despite the architectural criticism, the building received the American Institute of Architects' 2009 Honor Award.


title: Shriver (film)

text: Shriver is an upcoming American comedy film, written and directed by Michael Maren, based upon the novel of the same name by Chris Belden. It stars Michael Shannon, Kate Hudson, Don Johnson, Adhir Kalyan, Wendie Malick, Jimmi Simpson, M. Emmet Walsh, Zach Braff, and Da'Vine Joy Randolph.


title: Shriver (film)

text: In April 2017, it was announced Toni Collette and Thomas Haden Church had joined the cast of the film, with Michael Maren directing from a screenplay he wrote, based upon the novel of the same name by Chris Belden. In May 2017, Whoopi Goldberg and Giancarlo Esposito joined the cast of the film.


title: Shriver (film)

text: In January 2020, Michael Shannon, Kate Hudson, Da'Vine Joy Randolph, Jimmi Simpson, Zach Braff, Mark Boone Junior, Aja Naomi King, Adhir Kalyan, and Benjamin King joined the cast of the film, with Collette, Church, Goldberg and Esposito no longer attached.


title: Shriver (film)

text: Principal photography began in Los Angeles in February 2020. Filming was temporarily suspended in March due to COVID-19; but resumed and filming was completed in April 2021.