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Category Archives: Investing
Who gives you financial advice?
“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
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
So you’ve got a good idea – now what?
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
When to resign from a board
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
How Baupost’s goresight let them weather the storm
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
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Understanding our animal spirits
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
Xero’s capital raising
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
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
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 Board of Directors, Corporate Governance
9 Comments
Finda and Yellow: they had already lost
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)
(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
Citibank and the $20 billion bailout
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
Buffet’s biography Snowball
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
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








