Just as Enron manipulated the power grid to create artificial profits, a private equity firm, Fortress, is now attempting the same game with key railroad infrastructure in the State of Oregon, and using Oregon Public Pension assets to do it. Oregon PERS invested an additional $125 million in Fortress in May 2007 (select May 2007 … Continue reading Enron Style Train Wreck? Oregon PERS, SEC, DeFazio, Fortress, Railamerica
Category: Politics
On October 31, 2007 the NY Times wrote a story on former SEC Chair Levitt's public pension concerns yet decided to not include the single most important fact, that being that Levitt is on the board of directors of RiskMetrics, a firm which creates derivative products for hedge funds and is now attempting an IPO. … Continue reading Arthur Levitt Issues Pension Warning, SEC, RiskMetrics, ISS, Gates Foundation
OIC Chair Dick Solomon
Today Parish & Company formally requested the SEC to suspend RiskMetrics IPO due to inadequate disclosure regarding both RiskMetrics and ISS ownership structure. Such disclosure is the heart of proxy rule regulations given proxy firms unique role in the marketplace. In order to remedy this, RiskMetrics needs to file an ADV with the SEC and … Continue reading SEC Chair Cox called to suspend RiskMetrics IPO due to proxy rule deficiency
Current Treasury Secretary Paulson is now encouraging major banks, led by Citigroup, JP Morgan and Bank of America, to establish a financial superfund of perhaps as much as $100 billion to deal with toxic financil derivative products, often called SIV's. The biggest beneficiary would be the biggest issuer of SIV's, Citigroup and its Vice Chairman … Continue reading Should Treasury Secretary Paulson and SEC Bail Out Citigroup and Former Secretary Rubin’s SIV Investments?
EU antitrust regulators vowed on Monday to scrutinise Canadian group Thomson Corp's takeover of British financial news and data provider Reuters over concerns the deal could stifle competition. With Rupert Murdoch now owning Dow Jones, parent to the WSJ and Barrons, one has to wonder what it will take for US regulators to more closely … Continue reading EU Regulators Examine Reuters Thomson Merger
Here in the United States the two most important proxy firms are Institutional Shareholder Services, which is owned by hedge funds, and Glass Lewis, previously owned by a Shanghai Bank. The recent purchase of Glass Lewis by the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund is a terrific development in the world of corporate governance because it will … Continue reading Ontario Pension Fund Purchases Proxy Firm Glass Lewis
It is ironic that in the 1990's by aggressivly destroying competitors and also prohibiting the sale of content on the internet by giving content away for free, Microsoft essentially paved the road for Google's business model, the sale of privacy to advertisers. Google is a great company yet it's business is simple, it sells privacy, … Continue reading Microsoft and Google’s Untapped Frontier
In a major victory for the Linux operating system, Russia has mandated that all Russian schools will be using open source software by 2009. Open source is indeed a great learning environment and it is unfortunate that students here in the US continue to have their educations dumbed down by being forced to use Windows … Continue reading Microsoft Suffers Major Setback in Russia
Yesterday Ben Westlund announced he would run for State Treasurer as a Democrat. He had previously briefly run for Governor as an independent in 2006 against Governor Ted Kulongoski and before that was campaign manager for a Republican, Kevin Mannix, who ran and lost against Kulongoski in 2002. Westlund eventually withdrew from the Governor's race … Continue reading Kulongowski Endorses Westlund for State Treasurer