MEDIA ALERT: July 31, 2013Attention: Finance Reporters COLLEGE PARK, Md. - David Kass, Tyser Teaching Fellow in finance at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, comments on Facebook’s price per share rebounding to near its $38 IPO level (from May 2012) after trading as low as $17.55 last September. The Smith School has an in-house facility for live or taped interviews via fiber-optic line for television or multimedia content.

Robert H. Smith School of Business finance faculty member Elinda F. Kiss recently took student groups to visit the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and Federal Reserve buildings in Washington, D.C. The trips consisted of University of Maryland undergraduate students enrolled in Kiss’s Banking and Private Wealth Management Fellows Program and Master of Science students from her Bank Management course.

University of Maryland Robert H. Smith School of Business finance faculty members David Kass and Elinda F. Kiss and eight Smith undergraduates recently traveled to Omaha, Neb., to attend the annual shareholder meeting for Berkshire Hathaway, the conglomerate holding company chaired by Warren Buffett. Kass, who writes a blog about Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway, described the event as an “eye-opening” experience into the investment world for the students, while Kiss said it was a great opportunity for students to learn what a shareholders meetings is like.

The head of the federal Office of Financial Research visited the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business on May 14, 2013 to recruit experts to help mitigate a U.S. financial crisis.

Air date: Thursday, May 16, 2013, 7:30 p.m. The housing market is picking up steam, an indicator of an economic resurgence overall. What does this mean for buying and selling in Maryland? In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up with the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, Cliff Rossi talks about housing and the economy.

Jaime Caruana, General Manager for the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) The Center for Financial Policy at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business hosted Jaime Caruana, General Manager for the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), on April 15, 2013 as part of the center’s Distinguished Speakers Event Series.

Russ Wermers' recent work toward restoring integrity to capital markets has garnered international recognition. He has earned a top industry award for research into improving hedge fund monitoring and was recently tapped to collaborate with other experts to redefine global standards for evaluating investment management.

Cliff Rossi, Tyser Teaching Fellow and executive-in-residence at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, is available to comment on new home lending regulations set forth by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The bureau's “Ability to Pay” rule is designed to assure the reliability of mortgages. It addresses portions of the 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act focused on consumer ability to repay home loans.

Robert H. Smith School of Business finance professor and former Citigroup Inc. senior executive Cliff Rossi has weighed in on Citi’s plans to cut 11,000 jobs from its global consumer-banking unit. The move entails closing 84 branches, including 44 in the U.S.: “These latest cost-cutting measures get Citi focused back on efforts to improve their operating efficiency relative to their peers. Citi's dollars of revenue generated per employee lag behind their competitors and so this announcement is not surprising.