Category Archives: Investing

Who gives you financial advice?

Posted on April 25, 2010 by

“Chief executive Charles Anderson said the level of qualification among the SovNet force varied from nothing more than high school exams through to a handful with university degrees.” Maria Slade, NZHerald That’s the CE from Sovereign, an insurance company, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Investing, NZ Business | 6 Comments

Sky TV’s easy credit

Posted on August 24, 2009 by

Sky’s results came out this week – and while subscriber numbers grew the financial results were at the low end of expectations. I feel that their product is disappointing – with too much rugby translating into a general loss of … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Investing, media, NZ Business | 5 Comments

Making sure you make money from your business

Posted on July 15, 2009 by

These are notes from a whiteboard session that I led at BarCamp on Saturday. There were plenty of people in the room for the end of day session, and we had an excellent discussion. We were trying to answer the … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Internet Business, Investing | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

So you’ve got a good idea – now what?

Posted on June 28, 2009 by

I’ve been getting an increasing number of ideas over the transom over the last few weeks. It started before the radio interview last week, accelerated because of that, and tomorrow it seems I’m in the latest issue of Idealog. It’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Internet Business, Investing, NZ Business | Tagged , | 10 Comments

When to resign from a board

Posted on June 2, 2009 by

Over at the SEC is an excellent letter from Richard E Middlekauff – who just resigned from the board of Heelys, Inc – a shoe company. Here’s why: 1: The shareholders are not maximising their return after the company was … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Investing | 1 Comment

How Baupost’s goresight let them weather the storm

Posted on May 1, 2009 by

Notes from Seth Klarman’s speech at Columbia Business School is, interestingly, the most popular clicked-on link from here, coming from The Baupost Story post. So let’s do a round up of coverage, find some more reading on the Baupost story … Continue reading →

Posted in Investing | Leave a comment

Understanding our animal spirits

Posted on April 15, 2009 by

Prof Shiller (remember him from “Irrational Exuberance) has partnered with George A Akerlof in a strangely titled new book: Animal Spirits. I’m recommending it even before reading it. It’s basically about why we don’t behave as rational consumers when faced … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Investing, media, Trade Me | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Xero’s capital raising

Posted on April 9, 2009 by

Staggering. While I still believe that Xero’s IPO was expensive, I also believe in the business opportunity and how Xero is going about pursuing it. While the latest round of share issues at $0.90 is dillutive to the original $1.00 … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Internet Business, Investing, NZ Business | 10 Comments

The real estate market plunge

Posted on March 11, 2009 by

Alex Tarrant over at Interest.co.nz had a couple of, well, interesting posts on the housing market in NZ. There is a piece on the February housing statistics, which rose dramatically versus January, although the median price stayed down, and the … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Macro Trends, Investing | 5 Comments

Blame directors for failure, CEOs for success

Posted on March 11, 2009 by

Fairfax (Reuters) belatedly opines that Directorships are not a reward, but actual work. It’s an article based on US companies, but is applies to every jurisdiction. I absolutely agree – a directorship is a very serious obligation. I propose a … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Investing, NZ Business | Tagged , | 9 Comments

Finda and Yellow: they had already lost

Posted on February 5, 2009 by

Business listings is a winner take all game right? After all – why would you have more than one set of Yellow Pages in your house? So Yellow’s purchase of Finda is a great move. Right? Well not exactly. When … Continue reading →

Posted in Internet Business, Investing, NZ Business | 11 Comments

What happened in 2008 (for Lance)

Posted on December 30, 2008 by

(Apologies for the “all about me” post. This sort of thing helps to motivate me for the year.) Early last year I posted a plan for 2008 – daring to call it a manifesto. I’d just  turned down some very … Continue reading →

Posted in Investing, Life, media, Mobile Translation, NZ Business | Tagged | Leave a comment

Citibank and the $20 billion bailout

Posted on November 25, 2008 by

If you are going to spend $20 billion on bailing out a bank that has a market capitalization of  about $20 billion, then surely you should end up owning the bank? Not so with Citibank. Indeed, if you owned equity … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Investing | Tagged | Leave a comment

Buffet’s biography Snowball

Posted on November 23, 2008 by

Warren Buffet’s recently released authorised biography Snowball is excellent. It is a larger book, but is extremely well written, and easy to read and a great book for these troubling economic times. You just know he is out in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Business, Investing | 2 Comments

Please don’t bail out GM

Posted on November 18, 2008 by

I have to agree with Greg Saunders, posting at Tom Tomorrow on this: “When it comes to bailing out the auto industry, count me in the “let them starve” camp. The auto industry has been outsourcing American jobs for 25 … Continue reading →

Posted in Global Macro Trends, Investing | Tagged , , | 1 Comment