Here’s some free advice for Mitt Romney: Release your income tax returns now.  Right now.  Don’t wait “until April” as you’ve said in the past, or give a vague estimate of your effective tax rate, as you did earlier today.  Do it now so you can address facts, instead of conjecture and speculation. According to […]

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There’s long been a debate about whether a company’s culture makes any difference in how it performs.  Culture often is derided as the “soft stuff” that is nice to have but not really essential to a company’s success.  Indeed, Sandy Weill once famously quipped that culture was “something they put in yogurt.”  (Of course, we […]

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As reported today, the US Securities and Exchange Commission has introduced guidance for financial firms related to reporting of their European debt exposure.  The SEC issued its recommendations to address the inconsistent approach firms have used to disclose their risk to sovereign and private borrowers: “In response to our comments on their disclosure documents, registrants […]

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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 […]

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The crisis at Olympus shows no sign of easing after the resignation of Chairman Tsuyoshi Kikukawa.  Japanese regulators have joined investors in calling for a full explanation of payments Olympus made in connection with acquisitions it made in recent years. His resignation will not remove Kikukawa from the company, however.  He remains a director on […]

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