An endowed professorship established by the Frey Foundation at the University of Michigan Business School has gone to Anjan Thakor, one of the country's most prominent experts on banking strategy and regulation as well as on key aspects of finance. The new faculty post at Michigan was established with a $1.2 million grant from the Foundation, and will be known as the Edward J. Frey Professorship of Banking and Finance.
Thakor has chaired the finance department at Indiana University's School of Business,
where he is the NBD Professor of Finance. He has special expertise in banking policy, regulation and strategy, and also has emerged as a leading thinker in the area known as financial intermediation---ways of linking sources of capital with businesses and individuals in need of financing. Thakor is an editor of the Journal of Financial Intermediation, which is highly influential on theory and practice in the field, and the co-author of a recent textbook on bank management, Contemporary Financial Intermediation.
The new professorship makes a major contribution to building Michigan's expertise in a vital area and is seen by the Business School as an important step in furthering the capabilities that have placed it in the top ranks of business schools, according to School officials.
"The University of Michigan played a large role in my father's business career and his affection for the University was ever-present," said David Frey, vice chairman and trustee of the Frey Foundation. "Being able to honor him by helping further the Business School's national prominence is gratifying and most appropriate."
Succeeding his father, John E. Frey (1880-1962), Edward J. Frey Sr. served for 31 years as chief executive officer of Union Bank and Trust Co. (now NBD) and also founded Foremost Insurance Company in Grand Rapids in 1952.
. . . March 1996
