Otsog

I never audited companies this large so take this with a grain of salt. 1. It will certainly be more work for a new firm, but it won't necessarily take more time. Usually you can increase resources (staff) on an audit to get through it quicker. 2. It probably would be a similar picture, but I'd use something else to compare audit fees in an industry (% or revenue, net income or assets). More work = more fees, more audit work could be from changes in the nature in the business, high M&A activity, restatements, overly complex corporate structuring or increased scrutiny required because of poor internal controls. Taking 1+2 together makes it really stink though. I bet there was some major disagreement over accounting treatment between management and E&Y. I don't think there is really any significant difference between any of the Big 4 firms. If E&Y disagrees with you, so will PWC, D&T and KPMG.

Now you have my interest piqued! What sort of public housing is up in the Arctic? Is this something where you own a property and the government subsidizes the rent for the inhabitant? What types of challenges do you have up there? Maybe to the Canadians the Arctic isn't anything special, for me at least I think of it as probably one of the most forbidding places on Earth. Almost all of the Public Housing is owned by the government. A few units are leased to the government from a private owner and then sub-leased to a public housing tenant. Public Housing makes over 80% of the housing in the community I am in and I think that is similar across the entire territory (Nunavut). The biggest challenges are: - Uneducated, unskilled and unmotivated labour - Extremely high material costs (we get 1 ship a year, everything else has to be flown in, there are no roads) - Unit wear and tear due to extreme weather conditions, uneducated tenants, extreme overcrowding The Arctic is most certainly forbidding. It is a bit surreal living here, it feels like you are on the edge of the world and if your not careful *poof* you're gone. The sun was supposed to come back today for the first time in a month but it was cloudy for the 21 minutes it was up. Hopefully I will see it tomorrow :)

5 years public practice accounting (non- Big 4) 2 years property management .5 years public housing in a remote Arctic village

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/view/

Forget Bitcoin, forget Dogecoin COINYE WEST IS HERE http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/files/2014/01/coinye.jpg http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/01/02/coinye-west-is-your-newest-bitcoin-inspired-cryptocurrency/

SPSC GWRE HT MLNX LNKD NMRX SYUT CXP PLD MIC INXN MNK LOCK KMP AVIV DOOR CCOI ENV VOYA NTRI

Sorry, not a fund, but one of the studies Greenblatt mentioned in his fundamental/value-indexing book. http://www.researchaffiliates.com/Our%20Ideas/Insights/Papers/Documents/FAJ_Mar_Apr_2005_Fundamental_Indexation.pdf http://i.imgur.com/JDtd59J.jpg

We used their adjusted EBITDA numbers for our comments above. Also, FCF was leniently calculated with EBITDA - Capex (or depreciation). Using OCF - capex/depreciation we would arrive at ~$15M for FCF resulting in an EV/FCF multiple over 150X. D'oh! Sorry I missed that :-[

There are massive Goodwill and Trade Name impairments in recent years (~240 mill since YE 09). Normalized EBITDA is far different from EBITDA which I think is the cause of the wacky EBITDA valuations. I didn't look into the cause of the impairments, but that is probably something to check out.

At first I was thinking either small retailer with all 60 stores in a smallish geographic region or a boutique services firm. Lowest EBITDA is 8% but they've had negative operating income which means depreciation and amortization is a minimum 0.08 on a dollar of sales and capitalized assets last ~12.5 years (assuming no non-operating losses). This doesn't work with small geographic retailer or boutique services as the depreciation and amortization should be way lower for either of those. Maybe a specialized product manufacturer that produces goods to spec? Can't outsource production due to quality/timing concerns with the specialization of the product required. Complete shot in the dark, maybe an orthotics or prosthetics manufacturer? Regardless, if required capital investments is going to continually crush the operating income to negative or near 0 from an 8-12% EBITDA I would value the company at 0. Now I am also preparing to be embarrassed :-[

"Discussions on the internet will always be terrible, LOL" - Abraham Lincoln

Nice username :)

I don't get the big deal. I remember participation trophies in soccer as a kid and participation ribbons in cross country. The competitive kids like me who tried to win didn't care about the participation trophies, only the big trophies mattered. The terrible kids who were probably forced there by their parents got something at least /shrug. Participation trophies are not decorated victories, they are scarlet letters of mediocrity, that's what 8 year old me took away from it anyway. Not keeping score is a completely different issue though. I would never sign my kids up for that crap.

A western pipeline in Canada is far from a sure thing. There are people who have been working for nearly a decade on pretty much just the opposition of Northern Gateway. The First Nations are organized and strongly opposed. The BC public is remarkably strongly opposed. The BC politicians are remarkably strongly opposed. Christy Clark can read a poll. It is almost certainly going to federal court either way. If it does end up being built BC will be kicking and screaming the entire way. I wouldn't be surprised if Enbridge's ham fisted efforts to get a pipeline built here will materially affect other attempts at major industrial projects in BC.

Are you the one driving up FP?

Cap Cities aggressively pursued market share at the cost of accounting profits.

Great article, thanks for sharing. I really liked this comment too: I was an 'actually person' until I read 'How to win friends and influence people'. I think that book is a great starting point for people looking to attain the soft skills mentioned in the post.

http://www.hugheslittle.com/

And you are also from AnalystForum ;)

Current: Victoria, BC In two weeks: Kugaaruk, Nunavut

The CFA teaches EMH and TA, I wasn't aware anyone took it seriously in the first place ;)

This thread is amazing, I've learned so much. Thanks everyone. Sigh, now back to CFA study where I get to learn about technical analysis :-\

Love pretty much all of Clooney's work and love that there are artists who put their heart and souls into their work without caring about the $$$. But, he sounds like a freshman film major throughout the whole article. Which is weird since he's been around long enough to know how the business works. Transformers 8: CGI crapfest is going to gross 100x more than intellectual indie drama quirkfest. Putting the degradation of the artistic merit of Hollywood at Loeb's doorstep seems both premature and a few decades too late.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/log_scale.png

I think, therefore I value