I was catching up on holiday reading and came across this excellent New York Times piece on Ernest Shackleton written by Harvard Business School professor Nancy Koehn. Shackleton’s ambitious journey to reach the South Pole ended in failure but became a triumph of leadership, courage and determination as he brought his entire crew safely home […]
Years after its collapse, Refco continues to make news. Yesterday, an appeals court overturned the conviction of an attorney, Joseph P. Collins, who had been the chief outside counsel for the futures brokerage and was found guilty of aiding the company’s scheme to hide millions in debt and mask its true financial condition. When the […]
As 2011 disappears in the rear-view mirror, here’s my list of noteworthy risk-takers over the past year. These are the people and institutions that took risks intelligently and won. The list of risk-bumblers – those who mishandled critical situations – is certainly longer (UBS, Olympus, Yahoo, MF Global, I could go on) but their woes […]
For every troubled company that’s trying to restructure and eyeing a trip through bankruptcy to get a fresh start, Kodak is a case study on what not to do. For several days now, media headlines have reported on Kodak’s plans to file for bankruptcy protection, with no comment from the company. It’s the wrong strategy. […]
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday sued Life Partners (NASDAQ: LPHI), a major dealer in the secondary market for life insurance policies. Life Partners and other financial firms have been at the forefront of the “life settlements” industry, which purchases life insurance policies from individuals, usually seniors, for a lump-sum and collects the […]
Embattled investment bank Jefferies reported stronger-than-expected earnings and a slimmed-down balance sheet, confounding critics and sending the firm’s shares on a surge. The news marks a victory for the firm’s management and vindicates its strategy of aggressive communication during a crisis, as the firm sought to dispel rumors about its trading exposure and liquidity. Of […]
Were it not for the missing customer funds, the collapse of MF Global would be hailed as an example of how well the financial system worked. That’s a very big “if,” of course, and the loss of customer funds is a scandal all its own. But the market worked – and that’s an important lesson. […]
I happened to be reading Malcom Gladwell’s excellent book, Outliers, just as MF Global was collapsing, and I came across Gladwell’s discussion about another kind of crash – those involving airplanes. Gladwell offers an interesting observation about the causes of air disasters that could apply to the failures at financial firms, like MF Global, or […]
Sure, the positive comments today from Meredith Whitney helped, but give Jefferies (NYSE: JEF) credit for handling its communications well in a very challenging environment. At one point the stock was down 20 percent as rumors swirled about the firm’s exposure to European sovereign debt and a downgrade by Egan-Jones. By day’s end, however, the […]
It’s hard to square the statement by Olympus that its M&A transactions, which are now the subject of an independent investigation, “were in no way improper.” Presumably, the propriety of the deals is up to the investigation to determine. It’s precisely that sort of statement that makes investors skeptical about the company’s commitment to shedding […]