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Showing content with the highest reputation on 10/09/2024 in all areas

  1. One small suggestion - I think you'd have more success getting people to join you if you made a case for how undervalued the assets are as a result of current management. I think many aren't interested in getting involved to fix a wrong in the system, but would be more interested if they thought there was a big payoff to fixing this. Just my two cents and I wish you well!
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  2. I hope you have success cleaning up the company and their reporting. Also their refusal to disclose reasonable information to owners is frustrating.
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  3. Devil's Advocate opinion: I've seen some really great founders driven out of companies because the accountants get uptight about some petty stuff. Imagine being worth 9 figures plus and having some intern quibble over a few thousand dollars of compensation. These guys sometimes just decide it's not worth the aggravation and retire. While I agree in principle that compensation should all be above board, it would not be productive to drive out Buffett over his personal use of his jet, even though that's a lot of money.
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  4. Madoff was another one with related party transactions and nepotism. If you read Markopolos' memo that he submitted to the SEC, which you can find online or in his book, it's pretty obvious that Madoff was either committing fraud (which is what Markopolos thought) or that he was making money but lying about how he was doing it (which is what some of his customers thought). Some of his customers thought that he was front running orders using his brokerage. But it's pretty clear that the strategy he told the SEC he was using was impossible because his size would've required more than 100% of the volume on that exchange and the other people who trade their didn't know him. Funny story but I met Markopolos once, and while I do have a low opinion of a lot of the people I met at the SEC, Harry is pretty hard to take seriously if you see him in person. I'll be kind and say that he looked, well, eccentric. His hair wasn't combed, he wore a polka dot tie and was wearing pants with cargo pockets that obviously had a lot of stuff in them. So combine their incompetence with his colorful appearance and the fact that he alleging a fraud against someone who was not only a competitor, which cast doubt on his motive, but who was also the former chairman of Nasdaq. The SEC has a lot of lawyers and accountants, but not finance people or quants. It was only about a decade or so ago that they allowed their registrants to use portfolio margining. And that was only after they lobbied Congress and threatened to move their trading to London or Singapore or Tokyo. So I see why they didn't get it, but just because you're incompetent and not corrupt, doesn't mean that you're doing a good job. Good luck with the activism, I hope it works out.
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  5. Best of luck, friend. I read your posts when you post in the Ideas section. I am rooting for you.
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  6. If they are unwilling to disclose there might be much more cockroaches in there. Think about WeWork and Adam Neuman when it all came out, or SBF and FTX. You don't find out everything until it's too late. Enron was another one with a lot of related party transactions. I periodically check in on a company that is cheap but with terrible management. There was an employee wrongful firing lawsuit that has allegations that are not in 10K and very disturbing. Hiring the brother of an insider to build the new factory (which sux and has lots of production problems), a CFO who was barred from serving in such a role at a public company who is there and making all the decisions with an empty suit who has the official title and doesn't ask any questions. Toxic behavior at the office. A special class of preferred stock issued that seems to be for the benefit of the CEO. and then a proxy fight. And now the CFO just resigned and they are investigating their financial statements for the last 3 years. There are plenty of REITs out there, why spend time on this when you see red flags?
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