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Al Rosen aka God's gift to the accounting profession

Corey

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Dec 24, 2001
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I didn't want to go off track again in Esco's thread so I figured I'd start my own.

Al Rosen the legend was in the news again today.

"Forensic accountant Al Rosen said it looks to him that Bay Street knew the details of Goodale's announcement well before he made it.

"Clearly, there was a leak between 2 [p.m. ET] and 4 [p.m. ET]," he told CBC News. "
http://www.cbc.ca/story/business/national/2005/11/25/trusttrading-051125.html

He's also in today's Toronto Star:

"We took a hard look at the figures for the 50 largest business trusts," says Rosen, who has been warning about potential problems with income trusts for the past three years. "Once you compare them to the market, the gross inflation or balloon mechanism of these trusts becomes obvious."
http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...geid=971358637177&c=Article&cid=1132786212923

Yeah, he could be an a**hole. He's gruff, uses profanity and doesn't suffer fools gladly. But who would you rather have as your friend? A Burgess Meredith type character in Rocky who'll kick your ass and tell you the truth or a slick talkin' "yeah that's the ticket" bullsh*tter like the Jon Lovitz character on SNL?

I'll take Al any day.

Is he a legend? Damn right he is.

Students at Schulich still talk about him. And he retired from teaching eight years ago!

That means stories about him have been passed down by two generations of students who've never even been taught by him.

Yes, the "here's a quarter, go call your mother" story has been passed down but so has his legacy for being an excellent teacher and for helping build Schulich's reputation as an excellent business school.

The business world needs more guys like Al Rosen.

On another note, for those of you who don't think there's racism in Quebec -- take your head out of the sand, put your glasses on and read on:

"It's true we have been defeated, but basically by what? By money and the ethnic vote."
Jacques Parizeau
Oct. 30, 1995
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/lobby/4652/parizeau.html

Bernard Landry chews out ethnic hotel clerk for referendum loss:
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/lobby/4652/landry4.html

"Do you think it makes any sense that we have so few children in Quebec? We're one of the white races that has the fewest children. It doesn't make sense!"
Lucien Bouchard
Oct. 1995 referendum campaign
http://www.geocities.com/capitolhill/lobby/4652/white.html

The Michaud Affair
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michaud_Affair

"Racial hatred occasionally broke through the surface of the crisis as traffic frustration at the blockades grew into anger. The flames were fanned by radio host Gilles Proulx who repeatedly reminded his listeners that the Mohawks "couldn't even speak French" and the federal Member of Parliament for Chateauguay said that all the natives in Quebec should be shipped off to Labrador "if they wanted their own country so much"."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_crisis
 

Weekly

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Feb 6, 2005
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Al Rosen rocks! this guy deserves the Order of Canada for what he is doing for investors by questioning rogue practices on Bay Street. He should be the chairman of the OSC.
 

Corey

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Weekly said:
Yves Michaud may be a separatist but he's done some incredible things for small investors. He was the first in Canada to put shareholder proposals forward on our behalf. Unfortunately he refuses to translate into english.

www.apeiq.ca
Yep, you're right on that.

Also, Rosen would be great as head of OSC. Unfortunately, it's never gonna happen.
 

Fortunato

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Apr 27, 2003
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I'm guessing you guys have never actually talked to the man.

He makes some valid points on occasion, and I have no problem with his calling the corporate/investment world to task (indeed, that is something to be praised). But the comical "chicken little" drama techniques he uses to promote all of his crusades are a little tiresome. If you took him seriously, it's been decades since the free world and capitalism itself was going to fall apart because no one on the planet properly understood accounting.

And - better yet - no one could possibly understand the intricacies and complexities of (gasp) accounting... except him.

Please.

Yes, he's gruff. And crude. And impolite. But he was also a disgrace for a teacher, who's misplaced efforts went into theatrical tactics over discussing substance; and who always thought his students (along with everyone else on the planet) were beneath him.

And, in many ways he's as full of crap as those whom he is trying to "call out." He's just very defensive, and offhandedly dismisses you when you point it out to him.


He might, however, do fine as the OSC chair. At least the OSC will finally be noticed, even if it can't actually do anything....

Best regards,

F.
 

Corey

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Dec 24, 2001
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I've seen him speak to an audience and chatted with him briefly afterwards.

And surprisingly, it seemed like two different people.

Yeah, he's got his Don Rickles schtick but if you're not his target, he can be kinda funny. At least the time I saw him.

During our brief chat, he was quite nice, almost shy believe it or not.

I'd say his behaviour is probably frustration due to the fact that we've got extremely weak securities laws and he's seeing people get away with murder.

Beneath his crusty demeanor, I think he genuinely cares that people understand what's going on.

Otherwise he wouldn't be so available to the media.

He doesn't need the money and I'm sure he's got enough institutional clients to keep him busy.

His teaching methods were certainly, to put it nicely, unorthodox. But I know people who consider him a god in the accounting profession.
 

wrong hole

huh...
May 4, 2003
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25 malbury lane
Rosen,...here's a quarter...call someone who gives a f*%k
 

Corey

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Dec 24, 2001
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Interesting article from the Star.

Al Rosen's been talkng about this for years.

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/Co...le&cid=1135896621604&call_pageid=970599119419

Foreign investors wary of `Wild West'
Dec. 30, 2005. 06:50 AM
MADHAVI ACHARYA-TOM YEW
BUSINESS REPORTER


New York—Thomas Caldwell is a Canadian maverick in midtown Manhattan. Feisty and outspoken, the veteran investment manager is probably one of a handful who intimately knows both sides of the Canada-U.S. border.

From his 19th-floor office at 57th St. and Park Ave., not far from Central Park and down the avenue from the Waldorf Astoria hotel, Caldwell knows that more often than not, being Canadian in the centre of the U.S. financial universe means being overlooked.

"There's a great comment that you wouldn't worry what people think of you if you knew how rarely people think of you," he quipped.

But that changes in an instant when a stock market scandal erupts. In 1997, the collapse of junior mining company Bre-X Minerals Ltd. put Canada on the map in the worst way.

"At that point, I remember talking to fairly senior corporate executives. They said, `You don't even have a securities commission in Canada. It's like it's the wild north,'" said Caldwell, chair of Caldwell Asset Management Inc. "One of the things you must always recognize, particularly among New York money managers, is that New York and Manhattan are extremely parochial. They don't have the wildest idea of any other jurisdiction."

How foreign investors feel about Canadian markets is a question without an obvious answer. For starters, it's difficult, if not impossible to quantify. A look at non-resident investment data from Statistics Canada reveals broad overall trends that broadly follow bull and bear market trends. Big takeover deals can dramatically boost the numbers. The sharp increase in foreign holdings in 2004, for instance, is partly a result of the billion-dollar merger between life insurance giants Manulife Financial and Boston-based John Hancock.

The Canadian economy, along with the stock market, has been on a tear. Investors, domestic and foreign, like our steady, strong economic growth and have been impressed by our out-performing market. But in conversations with U.S. and Canadian money managers, securities lawyers and academics, two major themes — lack of investor protection and lack of a national stock market regulator — come up again and again.

It's an interesting paradox, said Charles Doran, director of the Center of Canadian Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C., with Canadians feeling that violent crime is rampant in the U.S., and Americans feeling that white-collar crime goes unchecked in Canada.

There is a sense in Canada that the regulations are not designed to protect the consumer, as they are in the U.S.

"That comes as a surprise, I think, to Canadians," Doran said. "They think of themselves as a very forward-thinking, and a benign, caring society."

For foreign investors, Canadian markets typically offer opportunities to invest in oil and gas and other natural resource stocks. But Canadian stock markets represent just 3 per cent of the world's capital markets. That means that it's easy for foreign investors to take a pass on buying Canadian if they don't feel confident about our markets.

"There's no question the rigidity and credibility of the enforcement regime is always a factor in the decision making of institutional investors," said Jacob Frenkel, a former lawyer with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, now with the law firm Schulman Rogers Gandalf Purdy & Eckerd, based in Rockville, Mad.

Money managers who look closely at a company's fundamentals (its management, track record, earnings) say they find much to like in Canada.

ABN Amro is the largest foreign investor in Canadian Refits, investment trusts that focus on real estate holdings, and can include everything from residential apartment complexes to retail shopping malls. These investments offer investors a regular income stream with the potential for capital gains.

ABN Amro looks at REITs in 29 countries and has been investing in Canada for about 10 years. "We've seen some really high-quality management teams in Canada," said Nancy Holland, global head of property for ABN Amro in Chicago. Holland also manages the Mackenzie Universal World Real Estate fund for Mackenzie Financial Corp. "They're very close to their properties, they take investor interests to heart, they know what's going on."

New York-based Third Avenue Management sub-advises the AIC Global Focused Fund. Like those at AIC, the portfolio managers at Third Avenue see themselves as bottom up, long-term value investors, meaning that they look for companies with strong financials that are trading at a discount in the market, typically because the company is in a sector that is currently out of favour. In recent years, natural-resource stocks have been a particular draw. Encana has been one of Third Avenue's largest holdings.

"We invest in companies that meet our safe and cheap criteria," portfolio manager Ian Lapey said in a recent interview at Third Avenue's midtown Manhattan office. "Historically, we have found a pretty good number of them in Canada."

Canada's regulation structure and its enforcement record are not considerations. "The companies we invest in have terrific disclosure," Lapey said, adding their research teams are able to find information they need through annual reports and other filings. "If we couldn't, we wouldn't invest."

It's also important to remember that the differences between Canada and the U.S. may not seem as great when compared with other places where investors do business. While North American companies are typically required to file detailed financial information quarterly, as well as when there's a drastic change in expectations, countries like Germany lie at the other end of the spectrum when it comes to disclosure.

"It can be surprising when we're doing a takeover with a German firm," said Craig Roeder, a partner at the giant international law firm Baker & McKenzie in Chicago. "You pull up all their exchange filings and you find that they typically only file twice a year and it's very cryptic. You can't find out who owns what and there's very little information about management compensation."

ABN Amro's Holland agrees. In some countries, there are more pressing issues, like not being about to get their money back once they've invested. In others, it's difficult to find out the information about the real estate, like the exact address of the properties, and how many tenants and square feet. "You don't necessarily get that detail around the world," Holland said. "From my perspective within all of that, Canada doesn't present any compelling big issues to not invest in the country."

Stock market scandals are not top of mind for these portfolio managers. "We can look at Enron and Worldcom but people are continuing to put money into the United States. ... The attitude is still, you've got to find the right company, which is why it's so important to us to get in and do the due diligence before we invest in the company and really understand the environment they operate in," Holland said.

As for Canadian stock-market scandals, "that happens a lot in the U.S., too," Lapey said. "I don't think it's possible to eliminate every stock-market blowup or case of fraud. I think you're always going to have those. Our job is to make sure we're not investing in them."

But with 13 provincial and territorial securities commissions, the Canadian regulatory patchwork can be confusing for foreign company that may consider offering investments here.

"They always say, `Get us advice in Canada,' and we say, `Where?' and they say, `We don't know,'" Roeder said. "They're kind of doing five times the amount of work. It's not that bad, but it's more cumbersome."
 

Corey

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That complexity can, and does, turn some issuers off Canada, said Cally Jordan, a law professor at the University of Florida. Her specialty is international securities regulation. "You explain to some of the international issuers what they have to do to sell securities to either a small number of people in Canada or to make a public offering of securities and they'll just say, `We don't know if we want to bother to do all that,'" Jordan said.

"The regulators are aware of that; that's why they've been trying to sort of patch things up through inter-regulator co-operation. They're trying to make it look easier than it actually is, trying to keep the messy mechanics in the closet."

Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge caused a stir a year ago when he said Canadian markets are perceived as "Wild West."

That sentiment accurately reflects attitudes in the legal and business community in the U.S., Doran said. "What happens is that Americans and others will not make investments to the same extent that the economy there would justify because they are concerned about just such things. The way in which the stock market is managed, for instance, is something they are uneasy about," Doran said.

"Here, if there is any kind of a shift in investments on the basis of principle, just prior to a public statement or a change in the performance of a company, that's monitored. But in Canada that would be looked upon as a normal business situation without anything to be concerned about."

Doran is referring to U.S. securities regulation known as 16B, a regulation governing stock purchases and sales by company insiders that requires any profits netted over a rolling six-month period to be disgorged. The law is meant to deter insiders from frequent, short-term trading of their company shares. Ontario has no such automatic disgorgement rules. The Ontario Securities Commission closely monitors all trading before and after major corporate announcements, and insiders have 10 days to report their transactions.

In the wake of the Enron and Worldcom corporate scandals, the U.S. adopted what is known as Sarbanes-Oxley legislation calling for tighter corporate governance. Canada subsequently adopted many of the same principles, slightly toned down and made more appropriate for smaller Canadian companies.

"I think in some respects, the Canadian regulatory regime is probably more thoughtful and more thorough than the U.S. because Canada appears to think critically about a lot of the regulatory developments in the United States. But that's on the regulatory side. Get to the enforcement side, it's way behind." Frenkel said.

He added that he was hoping to see Canadian regulators take an active role in the recent enforcement action against media baron Conrad Black and Hollinger Inc.

"To me, that would have been a great opportunity to have the U.S. government stand up and say we're deferring to Canada on various parts of the case."
 
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