Robert Noah, Ph.D.

Robert Noah is a founding partner of Cambridge Finance Partners, LLC. He has been engaged as an expert witness by banks, the U.S. Department of Justice, and private corporations in a range of finance and economics matters.

He is an expert in retail and commercial banking, residential and commercial mortgage backed securities, hedging and risk management, securities damages calculation, foreign currency options, options pricing, and valuation.

At Cambridge Finance Partners, Dr. Noah has assisted the U.S. Department of Justice and taxpayers on complex tax litigations involving leasing, securitization, hedging transactions, economic substance, and business purpose. He has also assisted major law firms and their clients in a wide variety of economics and finance related matters. In the area of business consulting, he has developed dynamic hedging models for a major merchant energy company.

He has consulted to banks on residential mortgage backed securities litigation involving dozens of cases including government actions, private actions, and class actions.

He has several years of experience working with banks on overdraft fee litigations, including analysis of extremely large transactions databases, identification of overdraft customer characteristics, and analysis of the actions of banking customers under financial stress.

Dr. Noah is an expert in complex computer modeling and simulation, particularly as applied to problems in finance. He has developed securities trading and abnormal return models used in shareholder class actions and related claims, and he has designed exotic option and derivative valuation tools.

In conjunction with his modeling and simulation capabilities, Dr. Noah is adept at large database design and analysis, which has proven critical to the resolution of data-intensive litigation. His case experience has involved client datasets measured in terabytes, and he and CFP have assisted clients in discovery by masking and encrypting sensitive customer information while preserving data integrity for analysis.

Prior to founding Cambridge Finance Partners, Dr. Noah was a Senior Associate at Analysis Group/Economics where he participated in several litigation case teams. He led case teams in matters related to securities fraud, regulatory dispute, business valuation, cost of capital analysis, and contract dispute. In addition, he directly consulted to a Fortune 100 finance company on litigation risk and anticipated litigation problems.

Dr. Noah received his undergraduate degree in economics from MIT and his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Michigan. At Michigan, and later at the Milken Institute, Dr. Noah conducted research in the areas of corporate finance and industrial organization.

Dr. Noah's paper, "Do Takeovers Create Value: New Methods and Evidence," co-authored with Sanjai Bhagat, David Hirshleifer, and Ming Dong, won the McGraw-Hill Best Corporate Finance Paper Award from the Northern Finance Association in 2002. He is also co-author of the chapter "Estimating the Cost of Capital" in the Litigation Services Handbook (2001).

Expert Witness Experience

  • Dana Corp. Bankruptcy
    U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York
    Expert for Dana Corp.
  • Middlesex Retirement System v. Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Company, The Boston Company Asset Management, LLC, Mellon Financial Corporation, and Russell/Mellon Analytical Services, Inc.
    Middlesex Superior Court, Commonwealth of Massachusetts
    Expert for Mellon Financial Corp.
  • The Procter & Gamble Company and Subsidiaries, and Procter & Gamble FSC v. United States of America
    U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Ohio
    Expert for the United States
  • Ambac Financial Group, Inc. v. United States of America
    U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York
    Expert for the United States
  • BCP Voyager Master Fund SPC, LTD. v. The Royal Bank of Scotland plc, and RBS Securities, Inc.
    Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of New York
    Expert for the Royal Bank of Scotland

Areas of Expertise

  • Banking and consumer finance
  • Complex securities, options, derivatives, RMBS, and CMBS
  • Valuation and damages
  • Risk management
  • Financial modeling
  • Large database management, design, and analysis

Education

  • Ph.D., Economics, University of Michigan, 1998
  • S.B., Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 1992

Professional Work Experience

  • Managing Director, Cambridge Finance Partners, LLC, 2001 - present
  • Senior Manager, Bates White & Ballentine, LLC, 2001
  • Senior Associate, Analysis Group/Economics, 1999 - 2000
  • Research Associate, Milken Institute, 1997 - 1999

Publications

  • "Do Takeovers Create Value? New Methods and Evidence," Journal of Financial Economics 76 (2005) 3-60, with Sanjai Bhagat, David Hirshleifer, and Ming Dong.
  • "Estimating the Cost of Capital," Litigation Services Handbook (2001), with Laura Boothman and Guarav Jetley.

Referee

  • American Economic Review
  • Review of Financial Studies

With Cambridge Finance Partners I have had a refreshingly high level of discourse and been provided with thoughtful and thorough analysis. They are a pleasure to work with.

—Joseph Stiglitz, 2001 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics