eagle51
28 Oct 2015
Re: Auditor appoinment JakNife - let's cut to the chase. This is the lie you told:" AA successfully defended itself against all the various legal actions that were brought against it"No it didn't.
frigginrascal
27 Oct 2015
Re: Auditor appoinment Has anyone contacted Auditors, if yes what have they said?
JakNife
27 Oct 2015
Re: Auditor appoinment eagle51 ,Yawn,You're the delusional one! The facts are simple but like so many others you've never bothered to do more than read the Daily Mail headlines.AA was initially convicted but they were successful in overturning that conviction. The Partnership still exists, it has not "collapsed" and it is actually in the process of re-establishing itself with a bidding war taking place for the name rights. Yes there was some civil action that was settled; yawn, civil action is not criminal. But hey, we're not going to settle this now, you need time to do some reading to catch up on your research. Let's agree to meet up here in three/four years time when the (if any) legal against Grant Thornton ultimately proves futile and you can congratulate me on my prescience. warmest regards,JakNife
eagle51
27 Oct 2015
Re: Auditor appoinment JakNife - you're delusional.Read what you wrote, then read what I wrote. If you still don't understand, ask someone clever to help you.Sorry everyone - the last wasn't my last post post after all. Hope you understand.Andersens no longer exists (although the article refer to something nominal being left) and everyone knows that. It eventually had the criminal action overturned but all the civil actions against it no doubt succeeded. As will any well-prepared claim against Grant Thornton - and very probably others who are also found to have been negligent, if the situation here unfolds in the way I expect it to. Hope this at least provides some hope. I don't believe it is misplaced, but it will take time. The best plan may be to find out what Forum intends to do - there don't appear to be any other institutional investors, although some might conceivably hold less than 3% - may be worth checking the register and if there are any, finding out what they intend to do. Forum's involvement looks odd:Google translation of Forum VC (6% as at 26/10/15):"Forum Family Office manages the assets of a family and has no other customers.For more than 15 years we are pursuing the same investment philosophy:Our focus is on long-term capital growth through the development of quality companiesWe are industrial in character, therefore we only invest directly in companies - ie no funds, carried interest models or real estateOur DNA is shaped by our role as a Family Office:We invest heavily and think in generationsWe make quick decisions and communicate openly and directlyWe work pragmatically and are reliable business partners with a handshake. Quality."[link] Goodness only knows what went wrong with their due diligence.............someone may be due the sack.
JakNife
27 Oct 2015
Re: Auditor appoinment eagle51,I don't understand why you can't simply accept your error and move on. You started this attack with the claim that:"Andersens did eventually collapse."But you now acknowledge that they didn't and AA still exists. I'll take that as an apology, I can tell that you're not going to expressly give one.Settling a civil action in the US happens all the time, even when organisations are not at fault - it is often easier to settle than to fight.Regardless my original comments remain factually correct and proven:"It is worthwhile remembering that AA went under as a consequence of the reputation damage caused by Enron. AA successfully defended itself against all the various legal actions that were brought against it".And Anderson did not "eventually collapse" as you claim (as evidenced by its continued existence). I note that you acknowledge that you too would not have been able to detect a "pig and pork" fraud and I therefore assume that you now agree with me that:"So once again: I very confidently predict that legal action against Grant Thornton will ultimately prove futile."As before: "Feel free to get in touch and congratulate me on my prediction in three/four years' time."warmest regards,JakNife
eagle51
27 Oct 2015
Re: Bistable PS This will be my last post here on the subject of GBO's demise. Maybe I should have stayed away - apologies to anyone who believes my posts were anything other than well-intentioned. I do genuinely offer commiserations to those who have lost out here (inc my beloved and a couple of others close to me). I'm not popular with the former even though I advised her to sell when I disposed of the last of my last shares two years ago, after progressively down-scaling over the previous 2 or 3 months. I stated that this was 'last year' in a recent post but in fact I sold my last 'parcel' of shares in October 2013 - apologies for the error.Some may ask why I remained a holder after the exchanges I had with Costis in late 2012. Looking back, despite my concerns, which were mainly around overstatement of profits, I concluded that the shares were probably not valued as highly as they would have been, but for the fact the company was 'Greek'. An argument could have been made that were Greece to exit the EU on a default or otherwise, this would actually be beneficial for GBO. With the Greek subsidiary about to be sold, I saw mileage in the shares, based on improvement in investor sentiment alone. I think I was probably partly right.I took a compromise position, selling half of what was a large investment to me at about 25p after the October 2012 email altercations (I spared the BB the full account of what Costis had said in an email to me, knowing he was reading my posts) but hung onto the remainder with rather more trepidation than before (risk v potential reward? Greed, more like) until a further exchange with him in the following year, by which time the shares were trading at above 40p. I exited progressively thereafter on a rising share price until October 2013. I then made a couple of small 'trading type' plays (with the price was jumping around a bit) before finally deciding I should stop, before the end of 2013.Having originally bought in at an average of around 20p - maybe a bit less - on a recommendation from another poster on here (for whom I still have high regard and am grateful to for what turned out to be a profitable experience despite the eventual worries) I regard myself as extremely fortunate to have done well financially out of GBO.I have made up for this in spades ever since, by being over-invested in oil (particularly XEL). I also have a position in QPP post Terry which I hope will do well. There are no guarantees in life - never mind the stock market. At least with oil (in the case of XEL at least - I don't touch out and out explorers) we know the oil is there.Do we?GL - there are always other opportunities. A lot of us tend to hang onto shares for too long, overcome by an irrational fear that, as soon as we sell, the price will rocket. It almost never does. There is no such thing as a bad profit. Averaging down (my own 'bette noir') seldom pays dividends either - you just end up holding more shares in a bad company. Oh dear.
eagle51
27 Oct 2015
Re: Bistable 1 Oct 2012:[link] of the answers given by CP:"Our CFO, happens to have adequate qualifications (studies and years in practice, although not a qualified chartered accountant as of now) for his role in Globo and apart from being instrumental in succeeding the IPO of Globo, managing risks related to Govermental receivables (that everyone thought was a bad debt, but eventually were all collected...) and being nominated as the FD of the year at 2010 Excellence Awards (associated with ICAEW), I would tell you that HE more than anyone in the business will know exactly what to do when we decide that a Nasdaq listing is in our plans. For the time being our mission is to succeed with our commercial launch in USA and when we feel comfortable and strong enough from our US operations we will consider the Nasdaq listing. Our Auditors have always done their job and they have a very strong understanding about our operations, risks and quality of reporting. If or when we decide to change auditors is something that will be announced officially, so we cannot comment further on that".
eagle51
27 Oct 2015
Bistable [email protected] - I'll fill you in (on info, not 'beat you up'!).No others please - what I have isn't for general circulation - Bistable & I were/are latterly in QPP and he's the only one who's asked questions...............
Richygm
27 Oct 2015
Re: Auditor appoinment An excellent post. And my view entirely.
Andy Reilly
27 Oct 2015
Re: Auditor appoinment B - its not infallible, but always applying a healthy dose of scepticism towards the many so called professionals offering advice is a good start. I am always amazed how many times folks quote a co's house brokers buy recs as evidence its a buy!Also trying to be open to a variety of views on a stock, rather than whole heartedly buying into the cos story, and dismissing any contrary view as deramping nonsense - the snorters were really on to something with GBO, but were dismissed with the usual comments.Personally I found the chart hard to understand, and was concerned about some of the negative stuff going around, but didn't buy the 25p dip in mid Sept, as I felt I couldn't justify the risk IF the stories were true. Maybe more luck that I didn't buy, but the fact that a massive short position was tenaciously held, despite the bounce also put me off, because it suggested they really might have a point - and boy did they have a point!It is terrible that these scams still go on, and that a good few PIs get cheated again, so you can only hope against hope that the rotten scoundrels that ran the GBO scam get suitably punished. Precedent doesnt bode well unfortunately!
eagle51
27 Oct 2015
Re: Auditor appoinment JakNifeWhat you stated (without qualification) in your misleading post was:"AA successfully defended itself against all the various legal actions that were brought against it".That statement is untrue. What you (again misleadingly) claim makes your post correct (it wasn't - it was 100% incorrect) is two sentences selectively taken from what the Wiki article actually states, which relates to the criminal charges brought against AA alone (see the full text below). It is far more difficult to prove criminal intent in the criminal courts than it is negligence in the civil courts. In the former, the measurement: "beyond reasonable doubt" is used, whereas in the latter "balance of probability is the benchmark. An example of this might be the OJ Simpson fiasco.The civil actions against AA would have filled a book. I don't not know how the actions were settled and the information to enable anyone to estimate the total cost of them to the former partners of Andersens and their insurers is probably not in the public domain, for obvious reasons. I suggested how the overall situation may have approached in an earlier post. There was no way Andersens could have defended their opinion(s) on the accounts of Enron - and I suspect they did not even seek to. The full text of the Wiki article you selectively cut and paste from is:"In 2002, the firm voluntarily surrendered its licenses to practice as Certified Public Accountants in the United States after being found guilty of criminal charges relating to the firm's handling of the auditing of Enron, an energy corporation based in Texas, which had filed for bankruptcy in 2001 and later failed.[1] The other national accounting and consulting firms bought some of the practices of Arthur Andersen. The verdict was subsequently overturned by the Supreme Court of the United States. The damage to its reputation, however, has prevented it from returning as a viable business, though it still nominally exists".You are arguing with the wrong person, using the wrong information.
sasa43
27 Oct 2015
Re: fao Sasa Yep, while there's life, etc., I quite agree, gallant, so let's hope so....sasa.
Bistable
27 Oct 2015
Re: We don't know anything yet Goofyyou are either tooo kind or nieve<All we know is there was financial errors, the scale of which is not known.>not errors fraud-if you are a CEO or CFO you cannot make errors of the magnitude reported leading to their resignatations-these were systematic over many years--Eagle picked this out 3 yrs ago-where were the auditors et al-he should form a consultancy for PI's to analyse and advise on these companies<As I said I phoned the London office this morning and they said business as usual >business as usual-I don't think so-probably on the phone and in meetings to avoid cancelling contracts or working out what to do with their time after contracts cancelled and so probably collecting P45's<It could be Costis is financially inept not a crook a lot of CEO's are.>you are too kind Goofy-financially inept-thats why you have a CFO- I have been TD on the board of a small growing company and the Ceo was definitely on the financial ball-thats a large part of their job with the CFO doing all the spreadsheets-ask Eagle -he will know
oldernowiser
27 Oct 2015
Re: Auditor appoinment At the risk of prolonging a "dialogue of the deaf" I believe that the original point I was making that the auditor acts for the shareholder still stands. If it can be demonstrated that there was negligence or incompetence then they may have a case to answer. There is much to be done before any conclusions can be drawn.
Gooffy
27 Oct 2015
We don't know anything yet All we know is there was financial errors, the scale of which is not known.As I said I phoned the London office this morning and they said business as usual and they have many offices.It could be Costis is financially inept not a crook a lot of CEO's are.If anyone is near the office perhaps call in and have a chat, see how busy it is.
