Jefferies Financial Group Inc

Overview

Risk is an inherent part of our business and activities. The extent to which we properly and effectively identify, assess, monitor and manage each of the various types of risk involved in our activities is critical to our financial soundness, viability and profitability. Accordingly, we have a comprehensive risk management approach, with a formal governance structure and policies and procedures outlining frameworks and processes to identify, assess, monitor and manage risk. Principal risks involved in our business activities include market, credit, liquidity and capital, operational, model and strategic risk. Legal, compliance, new business and reputational risk are also included within our principal risks.

Risk management is a multifaceted process that requires communication, judgment and knowledge of financial products and markets. Our risk management process encompasses the active involvement of executive and senior management, and also many departments independent of the revenue-producing business units, including the Risk Management, Operations, Information Technology, Compliance, Legal and Finance Departments. Our risk management policies, procedures and methodologies are flexible in nature and are subject to ongoing review and modification.

In achieving our strategic business objectives, our risk appetite incorporates keeping our clients’ interests as top priority and ensuring we are in compliance with applicable laws, rules and regulations, as well as adhering to the highest ethical standards. We undertake prudent risk-taking that protects the capital base and franchise, utilizing risk limits and tolerances that avoid outsized risk-taking. We maintain a diversified business mix and avoid significant concentrations to any sector, product, geography, or activity and set quantitative concentration limits to manage this risk. We consider contagion, second order effects and correlation in our risk assessment process and actively seek out value opportunities of all sizes. We manage the risk of opportunities larger than our approved risk levels through risk sharing and risk distribution, sell-down and hedging as appropriate. We have a limited appetite for illiquid assets and complex derivative financial instruments. We maintain the asset quality of our balance sheet through conducting trading activity in liquid markets and generally ensure high turnover of our inventory. We subject less liquid positions and derivative financial instruments to particular scrutiny and use a wide variety of specific metrics, limits, and constraints to manage these risks. We protect our reputation and franchise, as well as our standing within the market. We operate a federated approach to risk management and assign risk oversight responsibilities to a number of functions with specific areas of focus.

For discussion of liquidity and capital risk management, refer to the “Liquidity, Financial Condition and Capital Resources” section herein.

Governance and Risk Management Structure

Our Board of Directors (“Board”) and Risk and Liquidity Oversight Committee (“Committee”). Our Board and Committee play an important role in reviewing our risk management process and risk appetite. The Committee assists the Board in its oversight of: (i) the Company’s enterprise risk management, (ii) the Company’s capital, liquidity and funding guidelines and policies and (iii) the performance of the Company’s Chief Risk Officer. Our Global Chief Risk Officer (“CRO”) and Global Treasurer meet with the Committee on no less than a quarterly basis to present our risk profile and liquidity profile and to respond to questions. Our Chief Information Officer also meets with the Committee at least semi-annually to receive and review reports related to any exposure to cybersecurity risk and our plans and programs to mitigate and respond to cybersecurity risks. Additionally, our risk management team continuously monitors our various businesses, the level of risk the businesses are taking and the efficacy of potential risk mitigation strategies and presents this information to our senior management and the Committee.

Our Board also fulfills its risk oversight role through the operations of its various committees, including its Audit Committee. The Audit Committee has responsibility for risk oversight in connection with its review of our financial statements, internal audit function and internal control over financial reporting, as well as assisting the Board with our legal and regulatory compliance and overseeing our Code of Business Practice. The Audit Committee is also updated on risk controls at each of its regularly scheduled meetings.

Internal Audit, which reports to the Audit Committee of the Board and includes professionals with a broad range of audit and industry experience, including risk management expertise, is responsible for independently assessing and validating key controls within our risk management framework.

We make extensive use of internal committees to govern risk taking and ensure that business activities are properly identified, assessed, monitored and managed. The Risk Management Committee (“RMC”) and membership comprises our Chief Executive Officer, President, CFO, CRO and Global Treasurer. Our other risk related committees govern risk taking and ensure that business activities are properly managed for their area of oversight.

Risk Committees

•Risk Management Committee (RMC) -the principal committee that governs our risk taking activities. The RMC meets weekly to discuss our risk profile and discuss business or market trends and their potential impact on the business. The Committee approves our limits as a whole, and across risk categories and business lines, reviews limit breaches, and approves risk policies and stress testing methodologies and is supported by other Committees including:

•Credit Risk Committee - provides review and approval of counterparties and credit limits.

•Model Governance Committee - oversees all model risk matters throughout the model life cycle, from model identification and initiation, model development, model validation/approval, and model risk control.

•Stress Testing Committee - provides review and approval of, and oversees implementation of stress testing framework and methodologies

•Operating Committee - brings together the managers of all control areas and the business line chief operating officers, whereby each department presents issues regarding current and proposed business. This committee provides the key forum for coordination and communication between the control managers entirely focused on our activities as a whole.

•Asset / Liability Committee - seeks to ensure effective management and control of the balance sheet in terms of risk profile, adequacy of capital and liquidity resources, and funding profile and strategy. The committee is responsible for developing, implementing and enforcing our liquidity, funding and capital policies. This includes recommendations for capital and balance sheet size, as well as the allocation of capital to our businesses.

•Independent Price Verification Committee - establishes our valuation policies and procedures and is responsible for independently validating the fair value of our financial instruments. The committee, which comprises stakeholders represented by the CFO, Internal Audit, Risk Management and Controllers, meets monthly to assess and approve the results of our inventory price testing.

•New Business Committee - reviews new business, products and activities and extensions of existing businesses, products and activities that may introduce materially different or greater risks than those of a business’ existing activities. The new business approval process is a key control over new business activity. The objectives are to notify all relevant functions of the intention to introduce a new product, business or activity, to share information between functions and to ensure there is a thorough understanding of the proposal.

Risk Considerations

We apply a comprehensive framework of limits on a variety of key metrics to constrain the risk profile of our business activities. The size of the limits reflects our risk appetite for a certain activity under normal business conditions. Key metrics included in our risk management framework include inventory position and exposure limits on a gross and net basis, scenario analysis and stress tests, Value-at-Risk (“VaR”), sensitivities, exposure concentrations, aged inventory, Level 3 assets, counterparty exposure, leverage and cash capital.

Market Risk

Market risk is defined as the risk of loss due to fluctuations in the market value of financial assets and liabilities attributable to changes in market variables.

Our market risk principally arises from interest rate risk, from exposure to changes in the yield curve, the volatility of interest rates, and credit spreads, and from equity price risks from exposure to changes in prices and volatilities of individual equities, equity baskets and equity indices. In addition, commodity price risk results from exposure to the changes in prices and volatilities of individual commodities, commodity baskets and commodity indices, and foreign exchange risk results from changes in foreign currency rates.

Market risk is present in our capital markets business through market making, proprietary trading, underwriting and investing activities and is present in our asset management business through investments in separately managed accounts and direct investments in funds. Given our involvement in a broad set of financial products and markets, market risk exposures are diversified, and economic hedges are established as appropriate.

Market risk is monitored and managed through a set of key risk metrics such as VaR, stress scenarios, risk sensitivities and position exposures. Limits are set on the key risk metrics to monitor and control the risk exposure ensuring that it is in line with our risk appetite. Our risk appetite, including the market risk limits, is periodically reviewed to reflect business strategy and market environment. Material risk changes, top/emerging risks and limit utilizations/breaches are highlighted, through risk reporting, and escalated as necessary.

Trading is principally managed through front office trader mandates, where each trader is provided a specific mandate in line with our product registry. Mandates set out the activities, currencies, countries and products that the desk is permitted to trade in and set the limits applicable to the desk. Traders are responsible for knowing their trading limits and trading in a manner consistent with their mandate.

VaR

VaR is a statistical estimate of the potential loss from adverse market movements over a specified time horizon within a specified probability (confidence level). It provides a common risk measure across financial instruments, markets and asset classes. We estimate VaR using a model that simulates revenue and loss distributions by applying historical market changes to the current portfolio. We calculate a one-day VaR using a one-year look-back period measured at a 95% confidence level.

As with all measures of VaR, our estimate has inherent limitations due to the assumption that historical changes in market conditions are representative of the future. Furthermore, the VaR model measures the risk of a current static position over a one-day horizon and might not capture the market risk over a longer time horizon where moves may be more extreme. Previous changes in market risk factors may not generate accurate predictions of future market movements. While we believe the assumptions and inputs in our risk model are reasonable, we could incur losses greater than the reported VaR. Consequently, this VaR estimate is only one of a number of tools we use in our daily risk management activities.

The table below shows firmwide VaR for each component of market risk by interest rate and credit spreads, equity, currency and commodity products using the past 365 days of historical data (in millions):

(1)For the firmwide VaR numbers reported above, a one-day time horizon, with a one year look-back period, and a 95% confidence level were used.

(2)The diversification effect is not applicable for the maximum and minimum VaR values as the firmwide VaR and the VaR values for the four risk categories might have occurred on different days during the period.

(3)The aggregated VaR presented here is less than the sum of the individual components (i.e., interest rate risk, foreign exchange rate risk, equity risk and commodity price risk) due to the benefit of diversification among the four risk categories. Diversification benefit equals the difference between aggregated VaR and the sum of VaRs for the four risk categories and arises because the market risk categories are not perfectly correlated.

(4)At November 30, 2023 and for the period are inclusive of the trading portfolio of Stratos.

The table below shows VaR for our capital markets trading activities, which excludes the impact on VaR for each component of market risk from our asset management activities, by interest rate and credit spreads, equity, currency and commodity products using the past 365 days of historical data (in millions):

(1)For the capital markets VaR numbers reported above, a one-day time horizon, with a one-year look-back period, and a 95% confidence level were used.

(2)The diversification effect is not applicable for the maximum and minimum VaR values as the capital markets VaR and the VaR values for the four risk categories might have occurred on different days during the period.

(3)The aggregated VaR presented here is less than the sum of the individual components (i.e., interest rate risk, foreign exchange rate risk, equity risk and commodity price risk) due to the benefit of diversification among the four risk categories. Diversification benefit equals the difference between aggregated VaR and the sum of VaRs for the four risk categories and arises because the market risk categories are not perfectly correlated.

Our average daily firmwide VaR increased to $13.57 million for 2023 from $11.04 million for 2022. The increase was primarily driven by higher equity exposures in Asset Management from the launch of new funds and higher exposures related to merchant banking activities, partially offset by an increase in the diversification effect. Average daily capital markets VaR remained relatively stable with a slight decrease to $9.13 million for 2023 from $9.20 million for 2022.

The efficacy of the VaR model is tested by comparing our actual daily net revenues for those positions included in VaR calculation with the daily VaR estimate. This evaluation is performed at various levels, from the overall level down to specific business lines. For the VaR model, revenue is defined as principal transactions revenues, trading related commissions, revenue from securitization activities and net interest income. VaR backtesting methodologies differ for regulated entities with approved capital models.

For a 95% confidence one day VaR model (i.e., no intra-day trading), assuming current changes in market value are consistent with the historical changes used in the calculation, losses would not be expected to exceed the VaR estimates more than twelve times on an annual basis (i.e., once in every 20 days). During 2023, there were zero days when the aggregate net trading loss exceeded the 95% one day VaR.

The chart below presents our daily firmwide VaR and capital markets VaR over the last four quarters. VaR steadily increased in first quarter of 2023 driven by higher equity exposure mainly related to our asset management activities. VaR has remained relatively stable throughout the remainder of 2023, with a modest increase in volatility for a brief period during the third quarter of 2023.

Daily Net Trading Revenue

There were 26 days with firmwide trading losses out of a total of 251 trading days in 2023. The histogram below presents the distribution of our actual daily net trading revenue for substantially all of our trading activities for 2023 (in millions):

Other Risk Measures

Sensitivity analysis is viewed as the most appropriate measure of risks for certain positions within financial instruments and therefore such positions are not included in the VaR model. Accordingly, Risk Management has additional procedures in place to assure that the level of potential loss that would arise from market movements are within acceptable levels. Such procedures include performing stress tests and profit and loss analysis. The table below presents the potential reduction in earnings associated with a 10% stress of the fair value of the positions that are not included in the VaR model at November 30, 2023 (in thousands):

(1)Includes investments in hedge funds, fund of funds and private equity funds. For additional details on these investments refer to “Investments at Fair Value” within Note 6, Fair Value Disclosures, in our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

The impact of changes in our own credit spreads on our structured notes for which the fair value option was elected is not included in VaR. The estimated credit spread risk sensitivity for each one basis point widening in our own credit spreads on financial liabilities for which the fair value option was elected was an increase in value of approximately $1.5 million at November 30, 2023, which is included in other comprehensive income.

Other Risk

We are also subject to interest rate risk on our long-term fixed interest rate debt. Generally, the fair market value of debt securities with a fixed interest rate will increase as interest rates fall, and the fair market value will decrease as interest rates rise. The following table represents principal cash flows by expected maturity dates and the related weighted-average interest rate on those maturities for our consolidated long-term debt obligations, inclusive of any related interest rate hedges. For the variable rate borrowings, the weighted-average interest rates are based on the rates in effect at the reporting date. Our market risk with respect to foreign currency exposure on our long-term debt is also presented in the table below (dollars in thousands). For additional information, see Note 19, Long-Term Debt in our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Stress Tests and Scenario Analysis

Stress tests are used to analyze the potential impact of specific events or extreme market moves on the current portfolio both firm-wide and within business segments. Stress testing is an important part of our risk management approach because it allows us to quantify our exposure to tail risks, highlight potential loss concentrations, undertake risk/reward analysis, set risk controls and overall assess and mitigate our risk.

We employ a range of stress scenarios, which comprise both historical market price and rate changes and hypothetical market environments, and generally involve simultaneous changes of many risk factors. Indicative market changes in the scenarios include, but are not limited to, a large widening of credit spreads, a substantial decline in equities markets, significant moves in selected emerging markets, large moves in interest rates and changes in the shape of the yield curve.

Unlike our VaR, which measures potential losses within a given confidence interval, stress scenarios do not have an associated implied probability. Rather, stress testing is used to estimate the potential loss from market moves that tend to be larger than those embedded in the VaR calculation. Stress testing complements VaR to cover for potential limitations of VaR such as the breakdown in correlations, non-linear risks, tail risk and extreme events and capturing market moves beyond the confidence levels assumed in the VaR calculations.

Stress testing is performed and reported at least weekly as part of our risk management process and on an ad hoc basis in response to market events or concerns. Current stress tests provide estimated revenue and loss of the current portfolio through a range of both historical and hypothetical events. The stress scenarios are reviewed and assessed at least annually so that they remain relevant and up to date with market developments. Additional hypothetical scenarios are also conducted on a sub-portfolio basis to assess the impact of any relevant idiosyncratic stress events as needed.

Counterparty Credit Risk

Credit risk is the risk of loss due to adverse changes in a counterparty’s credit worthiness or its ability or willingness to meet its financial obligations in accordance with the terms and conditions of a financial contract.

We are exposed to credit risk as a trading counterparty to other broker-dealers and customers, as a counterparty to derivative contracts, as a direct lender and through extending loan commitments and providing securities-based lending and as a member of exchanges and clearing organizations. Credit exposure exists across a wide range of products, including cash and cash equivalents, loans, securities finance transactions and over-the-counter derivative contracts. The main sources of credit risk are:

•Loans and lending arising in connection with our investment banking and capital markets activities, which reflects our exposure at risk on a default event with no recovery of loans. Current exposure represents loans that have been drawn by the borrower and lending commitments that are outstanding. In addition, credit exposures on forward settling traded loans are included within our loans and lending exposures for consistency with the balance sheet categorization of these items. Loans and lending also arise in connection with our portion of a Secured Revolving Credit Facility that is with us and Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company, to be funded equally, to support loan underwritings by Jefferies Finance. For further information on this facility, refer to Note 11, Investments in our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. In addition, we have loans outstanding to certain of our officers and employees (none of whom are executive officers or directors). For further information on these employee loans, refer to Note 27, Related Party Transactions in our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

•Securities and margin financing transactions, which reflect our credit exposure arising from reverse repurchase agreements, repurchase agreements and securities lending agreements to the extent the fair value of the underlying collateral differs from the contractual agreement amount and from margin provided to customers.

•OTC derivatives, which are reported net by counterparty when a legal right of setoff exists under an enforceable master netting agreement. OTC derivative exposure is based on a contract at fair value, net of cash collateral received or posted under credit support agreements. In addition, credit exposures on forward settling trades are included within our derivative credit exposures.

•Cash and cash equivalents, which includes both interest-bearing and non-interest-bearing deposits at banks.

Credit is extended to counterparties in a controlled manner and in order to generate acceptable returns, whether such credit is granted directly or is incidental to a transaction. All extensions of credit are monitored and managed as a whole to limit exposure to loss related to credit risk. Credit risk is managed according to the Credit Risk Management Policy, which sets out the process for identifying counterparty credit risk, establishing counterparty limits, and managing and monitoring credit limits. The policy includes our approach for:

•Client on-boarding and approving counterparty credit limits;

•Negotiating, approving and monitoring credit terms in legal and master documentation;

•Determining the analytical standards and risk parameters for ongoing management and monitoring credit risk books;

•Actively managing daily exposure, exceptions and breaches; and

•Monitoring daily margin call activity and counterparty performance.

Counterparty credit exposure limits are granted within our credit ratings framework, as detailed in the Credit Risk Management Policy. The Credit Risk Department assesses counterparty credit risk and sets credit limits at the counterparty master agreement level. Limits must be approved by appropriate credit officers and initiated in our credit and trading systems before trading commences. All credit exposures are reviewed against approved limits on a daily basis.

Our Secured Revolving Credit Facility, which supports loan underwritings by Jefferies Finance, is governed under separate policies other than the Credit Risk Management Policy and is approved by our Board. The loans outstanding to certain of our officers and employees are extended pursuant to a review by our most senior management.

Current counterparty credit exposures at November 30, 2023 and 2022 are summarized in the tables below and provided by credit quality, region and industry (in millions). Credit exposures presented take netting and collateral into consideration by counterparty and master agreement. Collateral taken into consideration includes both collateral received as cash as well as collateral received in the form of securities or other arrangements. Current exposure is the loss that would be incurred on a particular set of positions in the event of default by the counterparty, assuming no recovery. Current exposure equals the fair value of the positions less collateral. Issuer risk is the credit risk arising from inventory positions (for example, corporate debt securities and secondary bank loans). Issuer risk is included in our country risk exposure tables below.

For additional information regarding credit exposure to OTC derivative contracts, refer to Note 7, Derivative Financial Instruments in our consolidated financial statements included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Country Risk Exposure

Country risk is the risk that events or developments that occur in the general environment of a country or countries due to economic, political, social, regulatory, legal or other factors, will affect the ability of obligors of the country to honor their obligations. We define the country of risk as the country of jurisdiction or domicile of the obligor and monitor country risk resulting from both trading positions and counterparty exposure, which may not include the offsetting benefit of any financial instruments utilized to manage market risk. The following tables reflect our top exposure at November 30, 2023 and 2022 to the sovereign governments, corporations and financial institutions in those non- U.S. countries in which we have a net long issuer and counterparty exposure (in millions):

Operational Risk

Operational risk is the risk of financial or non-financial impact, resulting from inadequate or failed internal processes, people and systems or from external events. We interpret this definition as including not only financial loss or gain but also other negative impacts to our objectives such as reputational impact, legal/regulatory impact and impact on our clients. Third-party risk is also included as a subset of Operational Risk and is defined as the potential threat presented to us, or our employees or clients, from our supply chain and other third parties used to perform a process, service or activity on our behalf.

Our Operational Risk framework includes governance as well as operational risk processes, comprises operational risk event capture and analysis, risk and control self-assessments, operational risk key indicators, action tracking, risk monitoring and reporting, deep dive risk assessments, new business approvals and vendor risk management. Each revenue producing and support department is responsible for the management and reporting of operational risks and the implementation of the Operational Risk Management Policy and processes within the department with regular operational risk training provided to our employees.

Operational Risk events are mapped to Risk Categories used for the consistent classification of risk data to support root cause and trend analysis, which includes:

•Fraud and Theft

•Clients and Business Practices

•Market Conduct / Regulatory Compliance

•Business Disruption

•Technology

•Data Protection and Privacy

•Trading

•Transaction and Process Management

•People

•Cyber

•Vendor Risk

Operational Risk Management Policy, framework, infrastructure, methodology, processes, guidance and oversight of the operational risk processes are centralized and consistent firmwide and additionally subject to regional and legal entity operational risk governance as required. We also maintain a firmwide Third-Party (“Vendor”) Risk Management Policy & Framework to ensure adequate control and monitoring over our critical third parties which includes processes for conducting periodic reviews covering areas of risk including financial health, information security, privacy, business continuity management, disaster recovery and operational risk.

Model Risk

Model risk refers to the risk of losses resulting from decisions that are based on the output of models, due to errors or weaknesses in the design and development, implementation, or improper use of models. We use quantitative models primarily to value certain financial assets and liabilities and to monitor and manage our risk. Model risk is a function of the model materiality, frequency of use, complexity and uncertainty around inputs and assumptions used in a given model. Robust model risk management is a core part of our risk management approach and is overseen through our risk governance structure and risk management controls.

Legal and Compliance Risk

Legal and compliance risk includes the risk of noncompliance with applicable legal and regulatory requirements. We are subject to extensive regulation in the different jurisdictions in which we conduct our business. We have various procedures addressing issues such as regulatory capital requirements, sales and trading practices, use of and safekeeping of customer funds, credit granting, collection activities, anti-money laundering and record keeping. These risks also reflect the potential impact that changes in local and international laws and tax statutes have on the economics and viability of current or future transactions. In an effort to mitigate these risks, we continuously review new and pending regulations and legislation and participate in various industry interest groups. We also maintain an anonymous hotline for employees or others to report suspected inappropriate actions by us or by our employees or agents.

New Business Risk

New business risk refers to the risks of entering into a new line of business or offering a new product. By entering a new line of business or offering a new product, we may face risks that we are unaccustomed to dealing with and may increase the magnitude of the risks we currently face. The New Business Committee reviews proposals for new businesses and new products to determine if we are prepared to handle the additional or increased risks associated with entering into such activities.

Reputational Risk

We recognize that maintaining our reputation among clients, investors, regulators and the general public is an important aspect of minimizing legal and operational risks. Maintaining our reputation depends on a large number of factors, including the selection of our clients and the conduct of our business activities. We seek to maintain our reputation by screening potential clients and by conducting our business activities in accordance with high ethical standards. Our reputation and business activity can be affected by statements and actions of third parties, even false or misleading statements by them. We actively monitor public comment concerning us and are vigilant in seeking to assure accurate information and perception prevails.