Scroll down to read the first part of the report
The examiner in charge of investigating the bankruptcy of venerable Wall Street investment house Lehman Brothers, the most expensive bankruptcy in U.S. history, said in a report publicly released Thursday that senior officials failed to disclose key practices, opening them up to legal claims, and that JPMorgan Chase and Citigroup contributed to the firm's collapse. In addition, the report concludes that the firm's auditor, Ernst & Young, failed to meet "professional standards."
The exhaustive report was unsealed today by Judge James M. Peck, who said the report reads "like a best seller."
The examiner, Anton Valukas, also found that parties have claims to pursue against JPMorgan Chase and Citibank in connection with their behavior regarding the modification of agreements with Lehman and their increasing collateral demands in Lehman's final days. These demands had a "direct impact" on Lehman's diminishing liquidity -- its cash on hand -- which was a prime reason behind the firm's demise.
The examiner's report notes:
The business decisions that brought Lehman to its crisis of confidence may have been in error but were largely within the business judgment rule.The business decisions that brought Lehman to its crisis of confidence may have been in error but were largely within the business judgment rule.
But the decision not to disclose the effects of those judgments does give rise to colorable claims against the senior officers who oversaw and certified misleading financial statements -- Lehman's CEO Richard S. Fuld, Jr., and its CFOs Christopher O'Meara, Erin M. Callan and Ian T. Lowitt.There are colorable claims against Lehman's external auditor Ernst & Young for, among other things, its failure to question and challenge improper or inadequate disclosures in those financial statements.
The examiner defines a "colorable claim" as those for which the examiner "found that there is sufficient credible evidence to support a finding by a trier of fact." In other words, plaintiffs can start lining up.
The examiner notes that the issue giving rise to these potential claims was Lehman's creative use of repurchase agreements, otherwise known as repo. These are agreements between financial firms that essentially act as loans for cash -- one firm pledges collateral to another in exchange for cash with a promise that they'll buy back that collateral.
The examiner said the sole function of Lehman's use of repo was "balance sheet manipulation," according to the report:
Although Repo 105 transactions may not have been inherently improper, there is a colorable claim that their sole function as employed by Lehman was balance sheet manipulation. Lehman's own accounting personnel described Repo 105 transactions as an "accounting gimmick" and a "lazy way of managing the balance sheet as opposed to legitimately meeting balance sheet targets at quarter end." Lehman used Repo 105 "to reduce balance sheet at the quarter†end."
The reason for that, the report notes, was to lower Lehman's leverage -- a critical component of the firm's credit rating.
In 2007†08, Lehman knew that net leverage numbers were critical to the rating agencies and to counterparty confidence. Its ability to deleverage by selling assets was severely limited by the illiquidity and depressed prices of the assets it had accumulated.
Against this backdrop, Lehman turned to Repo 105 transactions to temporarily remove $50 billion of assets from its balance sheet at first and second quarter ends in 2008 so that it could report significantly lower net leverage numbers than reality.Lehman did so despite its understanding that none of its peers used similar accounting at that time to arrive at their leverage numbers, to which Lehman would be compared...
Lehman's failure to disclose the use of an accounting device to significantly and temporarily lower leverage, at the same time that it affirmatively represented those "low" leverage numbers to investors as positive news, created a misleading portrayal of Lehman's true financial health.
Colorable claims exist against the senior officers who were responsible for balance sheet management and financial disclosure, who signed and certified Lehman's financial statements and who failed to disclose Lehman's use and extent of Repo 105 transactions to manage its balance sheet.
But Lehman wasn't alone in its gimmickry. The firm's auditor, Ernst & Young, one of the four biggest auditing firms in the world, failed in its oversight role:
In May 2008, a Lehman Senior Vice President, Matthew Lee, wrote a letter to management alleging accounting improprieties; in the course of investigating the allegations, Ernst & Young was advised by Lee on June 12, 2008 that Lehman used $50 billion of Repo 105 transactions to temporarily move assets off balance sheet and quarter end.
The next day †- on June 13, 2008 †- Ernst & Young met with the Lehman Board Audit Committee but did not advise it about Lee's assertions, despite an express direction from the Committee to advise on all allegations raised by Lee.Ernst & Young took virtually no action to investigate the Repo 105 allegations. Ernst & Young
took no steps to question or challenge the non†disclosure by Lehman of its use of $50 billion of temporary, off†balance sheet transactions.Colorable claims exist that Ernst & Young did not meet professional standards, both in investigating Lee's allegations and in connection with its audit and review of Lehman's financial statements.
In total, the examiner collected in excess of five million documents, estimated to
comprise more than 40,000,000 pages
Although a handful of subpoenas were threatened and in a few cases served, ultimately Valukas received nearly all requested documents voluntarily.
READ the first part of the 2,200-page report:
I have been enrolled in the Market Motive social media online course for close to two months now. Each week I have been given a social media topic and have been responsible for viewing a certain number of films which go into detail about the topic being taught. There have been a wide range of social media topics such as a week dedicated to Twitter and another dedicated to Youtube.
Personally, going into the course I thought I was pretty familiar with the social media areas I was anticipating studying. I was excited to learn more of course, but didn’t have the highest of hopes. I honestly thought it would be nice to have a recap on the social areas I work with daily and after a few months of reiteration, I would obtain a certification to show off my knowledge.
I have to say my original thoughts were narrow minded. I have been continuously surprised at the insight I am gaining each week. Until now, I have been responsible for watching videos each week and partaking in conference calls with the faculty.(The course takes a turn now and the responsibilities change but I will write about all of that in a few days). The videos have each had such detail. They are unique to the faculty members who make the videos and specialize in the areas they are teaching.
Video Topics
|
A small amount of the material covered |
|
Blogging for Business |
Permalinks, RSS feeds, key word longtail , pitching check list |
|
Video & Youtube |
Popular categories, channel, market share |
|
Viral Marketing |
Brand, conversion, campaign styles, viral themes |
|
Social News Networks |
Do’s and don’ts across various networks, strategies to becoming more successful on each |
|
|
Appropriate business decisions, tools, connecting on and offline, tracking |
|
Flickr |
Titles, tags, descriptions, search engines and Flickr |
|
|
How to utilize Facebook for your business with Facebook connect and ads |
|
|
Advertising on LinkedIn, groups |
|
Online Press Releases |
Wire Services, measurement, Keyword positioning |
1) Examples of useful books to buy pertaining to the areas being taught that week which are based on social media current events and practices.
2) Informative commentary (humorous when applicable and serious when appropriate)
3) Graphs
4) Tools that the faculty use and recommend
5) Viral Marketing Brainstorming Checklist
6) Pitching check list
1) Length of each video is provided
2) 2-7 videos necessary to watch each week
3) Average 25 minutes per video
4) One Quiz to follow all videos combined for the week
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
I Admit It – These Videos Taught Me a Few Social Media Tricks
SocialMash:> How Companies are Using Social Media to Make Better Decisions http://ow.ly/16Jddd
Mat Fogarty is the Founder and CEO of Crowdcast, a leading provider of collective intelligence and prediction market solutions. You can read more of Mat’s posts on the Crowdcast blog or follow @crowdcastinc.
Collaboration and crowdsourcing are the realities of today’s public Internet, and the trend is now gaining real traction in the workplace. Smart companies increasingly understand that their richest source of insight, ideas, data, and information is within their own employees. They are the ones whose talent, work, and daily interactions with the product make the business what it is.
Just as so many of us look to the Yelp community to figure out where to make our dinner reservations, companies are increasingly looking to the employee crowd for the knowledge and insight to make better business decisions.
“If only HP knew what HP knows, we would be three times more productive.” – Lew Platt, Former CEO of HP
As the social enterprise builds momentum, the big question is: How will companies effectively tap the employee crowd to become more productive?
Enterprise social networks arm companies with social media functionality, allowing them to collaborate with their employees around up-to-the-minute information. Late last year, Salesforce stirred up some buzz around enterprise social networking with the announcement of its Chatter Collaboration Platform. Currently in beta, Chatter aims to bring together elements of Facebook, Twitter and other real-time services. By integrating profiles, feeds and groups across its platform, Salesforce offers its end users the same functionality they already use to share ideas and information on public social networks.
While social networking functionality excels at connecting teams around projects, information, and qualitative data, it falls short in its ability to drive quantitative, actionable insights — the holy grail for project managers and enterprise forecasting groups.
Prediction markets are all about tapping the crowd to source hard, unbiased quantitative metrics about the future of projects and business initiatives. A prediction market works like a stock market of sorts, allowing employees to anonymously place “bets” on key forecasts: When will the product really ship? How much will we sell in Q1? Will our competitor enter the market in 2010? And so forth.
Business leaders rely on metrics and data to inform decisions around new products and opportunities, but traditional forecasting methods suffer from bias and lack of first-hand information. That’s why business forecasting is an ideal target for the application of crowd wisdom. While bets are made anonymously, some prediction market software applications have built-in reward systems for accurate forecasters. And the accuracy of prediction markets over traditional forecasting methods is proven again and again.
There’s a good chance that a company’s next big idea could be hidden within the people who are most engaged with its product and brand. More companies are turning to the crowd for ideas on all aspects of their business by creating online public forums. In 2008, Starbucks launched a major initiative to enhance their services with a website called My Starbucks Idea that polls members on decisions that would most directly impact them.
This kind of innovation sourcing applies to the enterprise as well. Companies like Brightidea and InnoCentive are helping their customers tap resources to inspire, gather, and manage ideas and innovation from within their employee ranks.
As collaborative technologies gain traction, the future of enterprise will include internal social networks, prediction markets, and idea management platforms. In this vision, social networks will be the default location for a collaborative employee community. Think of it as a wide and deep pool of employee knowledge and ideas.
Prediction markets will then aggregate this knowledge to produce actionable, people-powered forecasts. The result is an ultra-rich information source that will lay the foundation for smarter, better-informed company decisions. We are already seeing the first movement towards this integrated vision with products like 12sprints from SAP.
The ability to manage and profit from employee knowledge through social networks, idea funnels, and prediction markets will be the defining competitive advantage for this decade. Employees will have a voice and enterprises will truly leverage their most valuable assets.
- 3 Crisis Survival Lessons for the Social Media Age
- 5 Ways to Avoid Sabotaging Your Personal Brand Online
- 4 Elements of a Successful Business Web Presence
- HOW TO: Implement a Social Media Business Strategy
- Google Buzz: 5 Opportunities for Small Businesses
Image courtesy of iStockphoto, alexsl
Tags: business, crowdsourcing, enterprise, facebook, small business, social media, social networks, twitter
SocialMash:> How Companies are Using Social Media to Make Better Decisions http://ow.ly/16Jddc
- Jim WilkersonHow Companies are Using Social Media to Make Better Decisions
- Chris Brogan
In Fortune Magazine’s annual ranking of “most admired companies”, Apple has once again walked away with the top spot. Apple was voted #1 for the third year in a row in a poll of executives, industry analysts and company directors. This year, Apple actually took pole position by its widest margin ever.
Other companies that ranked high on Fortune’s list include Google at #2 and Amazon.com at #5.
Check out this video from Fortune that explains a little more about the process and provides some insights into why certain companies are so admired:
Consumer and business trust, strong customer loyalty and the ability to transform new markets are all reasons that Apple was voted “most admired.” Apple easily topped the survey by scoring 51% of the vote.
Because this survey was taken before Apple filed suit against HTC, its recent legal actions obviously weren’t taken into consideration.
Apple, Google and Amazon.com all represent strong brands and strong feelings of loyalty amongst customers — plus good business decisions and balances sheets that appeal to investors.
Tags: amazon.com, apple, branding, Google, most admired companies
Cross-posted from Harvard Business Online
Organizations love data: numbers, reports, trend lines, graphs, spreadsheets -- the more the better. And, as a result, many organizations have a substantial internal factory that churns out data on a regular basis, as well as external resources on call that produce data for onetime studies and questions. But what's the evidence (or dare I say "the data") that all of this data is worth the cost and indeed leads to better business decisions? Is some amount of data collection unnecessary, perhaps even damaging by creating complexity and confusion?
Let's look at a quick case study: For many years the CEO of a premier consumer products company insisted on a monthly business review process that was highly data-intensive. At its core was a "book" that contained cost and sales data for every product sold in the company, broken down by business unit, channel, geography, and consumer segment. This book (available electronically but always printed by the executive team) was several inches thick. It was produced each month by many hundreds of finance, product management, and information technology people who spent thousands of hours collecting, assessing, analyzing, reconciling, and sorting the data.
Since this was the CEO's way of running the business, no one really questioned whether all of this activity really was worth it, although many complained about the time required. When a new CEO came on the scene a couple of years ago, however, he decided that the business would do just fine with quarterly reviews and exception-only reporting. Suddenly the entire data-production industry of this company was reduced substantially -- and the company didn't miss a beat.
Obviously different CEO's have different needs for data. Some want their decisions to be based on as much hard data as possible; others want just enough data to either reinforce or challenge their intuition; and still others may prefer a combination of hard, analytical data with anecdotal and qualitative input. These preferences at the top of the company often influence the "data culture" that is created. In all cases, though, managers would do well to ask themselves four questions about their data process as a way of improving the return on what is often a substantial (but not always visible) investment:
1.Are we asking the right questions? Many companies collect the data that is available, rather than the data that is needed to help make decisions and run the business. So the starting point for simplifying and improving data processes is to be clear about a limited number of key questions that you want the data to help you answer -- and then focus the data collection around those rather than everything else that is possible.
2.Does our data tell a story? Most data comes in fragments. To be useful, these individual bits of information need to be put together into a coherent explanation of the business situation, which means integrating data into a "story". While "enterprise data systems" have been useful in driving consistent data definitions so that things can be added and compared, they don't automatically create the story. Instead, managers should consider in advance what data is needed to convey the story that they will be required to tell.
3.Does our data help us look ahead rather than behind? Most of the data that is collected in companies tells managers how they performed in a past period -- but is less effective in predicting future performance. Therefore it is important to ask what data, at what time frames, will help us get ahead of the curve instead of just reacting.
4.Do we have a good mix of quantitative and qualitative data? Neither quantitative nor qualitative data tells the whole story. For example, to make good product and pricing decisions, we need to know not only what is being sold to whom, but also why some products are selling more than others.
Clearly business data and its analysis are critical for organizations to succeed -- which is underscored by the fact that companies like IBM are investing billions of dollars in acquisitions in the business intelligence and analytics space. But even the best automated tools won't be effective unless managers are clear about the questions raised above.
What's your assessment of data in your company?
Organizations love data: numbers, reports, trend lines, graphs, spreadsheets — the more the better. And, as a result, many organizations have a substantial internal factory that churns out data on a regular basis, as well as external resources on call that produce data for onetime studies and questions. But what's the evidence (or dare I say "the data") that all of this data is worth the cost and indeed leads to better business decisions? Is some amount of data collection unnecessary, perhaps even damaging by creating complexity and confusion?
Let's look at a quick case study: For many years the CEO of a premier consumer products company insisted on a monthly business review process that was highly data-intensive. At its core was a "book" that contained cost and sales data for every product sold in the company, broken down by business unit, channel, geography, and consumer segment. This book (available electronically but always printed by the executive team) was several inches thick. It was produced each month by many hundreds of finance, product management, and information technology people who spent thousands of hours collecting, assessing, analyzing, reconciling, and sorting the data.
Since this was the CEO's way of running the business, no one really questioned whether all of this activity really was worth it, although many complained about the time required. When a new CEO came on the scene a couple of years ago, however, he decided that the business would do just fine with quarterly reviews and exception-only reporting. Suddenly the entire data-production industry of this company was reduced substantially — and the company didn't miss a beat.
Obviously different CEO's have different needs for data. Some want their decisions to be based on as much hard data as possible; others want just enough data to either reinforce or challenge their intuition; and still others may prefer a combination of hard, analytical data with anecdotal and qualitative input. These preferences at the top of the company often influence the "data culture" that is created. In all cases, though, managers would do well to ask themselves four questions about their data process as a way of improving the return on what is often a substantial (but not always visible) investment:
Clearly business data and its analysis are critical for organizations to succeed — which is underscored by the fact that companies like IBM are investing billions of dollars in acquisitions in the business intelligence and analytics space. But even the best automated tools won't be effective unless managers are clear about the questions raised above.
What's your assessment of data in your company?
Back in December Patchou, creator of Messenger Plus! (Live), wrote a lengthy article about the history of Messenger Plus!. In that article he announced that he would take a step back (there’s only so much one man can do) and that his popular Messenger add-on had been transitioned into a larger company called Yuna Software, of which he is part.
This transition went through a rocky start for all parties involved. There were lots of concerns, which, due to restructuring of the company, were left unaddressed. Until today that is.
Today Patchou apologized for the issues on behalf of the whole company and announced that he is back in charge of things concerning the software. Of course some things will still be different, like business decisions, but as far as the software and what surrounds it goes, Patchou is back in charge (just like before).
Yuna Software has offices in several places in the world. Currently one more is being set up, one that is of most importance for Messenger Plus!, an office in Montreal. In that office, Patchou will be the manager. Soon he will be hiring software developers in the Montreal area. To be eligible you will need to be able to speak French and eat C++ for breakfast! Yumm! If this is you, send him a message and who knows, you may just be one of the people developing Messenger Plus! 5.
Just about every business with a web site does something to market and promote it. When those companies are asked about web analytics, it’s surprising how many look back with a blank stare. This isn’t the case with mature online marketers but it does happen a lot with new business web sites and blogs.
For many companies that are new to web analytics the idea of digging in and finding useful information can be daunting. It’s common marketing sense to measure what you’re marketing, but making sense of analytics data doesn’t always find time in the mix of duties a small business or new web site owner is responsible for.
The amount of information that analytics packages deliver isn’t always easy to sort through and turn into business decisions. So what should those that are new to web analytics do? Keep it simple and start off with the basics.
Each analytics package is different in features, price and learning curve. I’d suggest starting out with Google Analytics as it’s free, feature rich, and not too complicated to learn. Start off by looking at the items below.
As you feel more comfortable with Google Analytics you can then start to explore other actionable data including conversions, trends and features such as the most often used search terms on your internal search engine. Features like goals, top entrance/exit pages, bounce rates, and time on site are also a good metrics to use in understanding how visitors are interacting with your content. Visit the Google Analytics Help page to find out everything you need to know to make the most out of GA.
Web analytics can be overwhelming as there is a lot of information to be analyzed and then decisions that need to be made from that data. Instead of trying to jump in and consume it all, take it one step at a time.
© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. | Basic Tips on Web Analytics | No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com
Viewfinity, a Waltham, Mass.-based provider of systems and privilege management via cloud computing, has raised $9.1 million in Series B funding. Backers include Giza Venture Capital, JK&B Capital and Longworth Venture Partners.
PRESS RELEASE
Viewfinity (www.viewfinity.com), the innovator of systems and privilege management via cloud computing, today announced $9 million in B-round funding from Giza Venture Capital, JK&B Capital and Longworth Venture Partners. This announcement comes in tandem with the expansion of Viewfinity’s advisory team and addition of newest board members Greg Butterfield and Nilanjana Bhowmik.
Systems management icon Greg Butterfield, former CEO and Chairman of Altiris, is renowned for his business achievements that include the growth and mergers/acquisitions of WordPerfect to Novell, Vinca to Legato, Altiris to Symantec and Omniture to Adobe. Butterfield’s proven success in the systems management space and his alignment with Viewfinity’s vision and direction will help speed Viewfinity’s growth and ensure that business decisions and technology vision are ahead of the market.
“Viewfinity is in an ideal position to address the viable place in the market for systems management that can be addressed in a cloud-based model,” Butterfield said. “I am pleased for this opportunity to be directly involved in the next phase of Viewfinity’s strategy and growth.”
Founded by experienced entrepreneurs, Viewfinity offers cloud-based systems and privilege management solutions that allow IT departments to focus on managing systems and not the infrastructure. The cloud-computing model enables systems management support almost immediately so that administrators can begin managing the environment from anywhere and at any time, for both local and mobile workers. Viewfinity’s expertise in application virtualization serves as the foundation for new levels of advancement in cloud-based systems management, providing more granularity and control than ever before possible with traditional systems management platforms.
Series B investors reflect on their decision to fund Viewfinity:
Viewfinity introduces several additional prominent business and technology icons to its Advisory Board:
“Viewfinity’s ability to attract and appoint these business and technology leaders validates its credibility, leadership and presence in the market,” said Leonid Shtilman, CEO of Viewfinity. “We look forward to the insight and direction our advisory board will provide as we expand our offerings into the systems management marketplace.”
About
For more information about Viewfinity, or to schedule an interview, please visit www.viewfinity.com or call Cheryl Snapp-Conner or Matt Stubbs at 801.994.9625 or send an e-mail to cheryl@snappconner.com or matt@snappconner.com.
For more information about Giza Venture Capital, JK&B Capital or Longworth Venture Partners please visit www.gizavc.com, www.jkbcapital.com or www.longworth.com respectively.
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