Goldman Sachs Settlement with SEC Ignores Company’s Duty to Provide Timely Disclosures to Shareholders about Investigation Leading up to Litigation
by ilene - July 16th, 2010 4:07 am
Sam Antar makes a good point here. Looking out for shareholders was not the objective of the lawsuit brought by the SEC against Goldman Sachs. Whether it would have, should have, or could have been considered is another matter, and apparently not going to be addressed. What we have here (and seemingly everywhere within our financial system) is not a real operation of law, but more of a political sideshow. - Ilene
Goldman Sachs Settlement with SEC Ignores Company’s Duty to Provide Timely Disclosures to Shareholders about Investigation Leading up to Litigation
Courtesy of Sam Antar of White Collar Fraud
The Securities and Exchange Commission’s settlement of a lawsuit against Goldman Sachs (NYSE: GS) over a certain subprime mortgage product sold to investors misses a key issue concerning the company’s duty to provide timely and transparent disclosures to its own shareholders about government subpoenas, investigations, and pending enforcement actions against the firm. In this particular case, Goldman did not make timely disclosures about the regulator’s investigation and pending lawsuit against the firm, right under the SEC investigator’s noses.
Goldman Sachs chooses to keep shareholders in the dark about SEC investigation and pending enforcement action
During the summer of 2008, the SEC started investigating Goldman’s marketing of a certain subprime mortgage product, known as ABACUS CDO, to investors who lost over $1 billion from that transaction.
At that time, Goldman Sachs knew that the SEC was investigating its failure to disclose material information to investors in violation of SEC Rule 10b-5 in connection with that transaction. However, Goldman Sachs did not disclose the SEC’s investigation in its financial reports.
In July 2009, the SEC sent Goldman Sachs a Wells notice informing Goldman of its intention to file a lawsuit against the company. Still, Goldman Sachs chose not to disclose the SEC’s pending enforcement action in its financial reports.
On Friday, April 16, 2010, the SEC filed a surprise lawsuit against Goldman Sachs and Executive Director Fabrice Tourre alleging securities fraud in connected with the company’s marketing of the ABACUS CDO to investors. That day, Goldman Sachs shares plummeted from $183.31 per share to $160.30 per share or about 13%, wiping out about $12 billion of shareholder wealth.
Clearly, investors deemed the surprise news of the SEC complaint against the company as material information, unlike the management team running Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs settles SEC charges
Yesterday, Goldman Sachs settled SEC charges…
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Greed’s Not Good For Shareholders
by ilene - June 18th, 2010 4:38 pm
Greed’s Not Good For Shareholders
Courtesy of Tim at The Psy-Fi Blog
Don’t Aim to Maximise Shareholder Value
When we look at the genuinely successful business people of our time, that happy band of folks who’ve created true shareholder value, enriching themselves and their followers to an astonishing degree, we find an extraordinary thing. The vast majority of these people are not particularly interested in money and their companies are generally not dedicated to some New Age declaration of shareholder value maximisation.
Greed is not a quality that seems to drive the world’s greatest creators of shareholder value and creating shareholder value is not the aim of the companies that are best at it. In fact we can pretty much guarantee the alternative: wherever you find over-rewarded executives presiding over companies whose main aim is to increase their market capitalisation we should pick up our skirts and get the hell out of it. Corporate greed is bad for ordinary shareholders.
Buffett’s Army
If you read Warren Buffett’s shareholder letters, for instance, you can’t help but notice that the people whose companies he takes over all, by and large, continue to work for him despite being made rich beyond the dreams of our avarice. They tap-dance to the workplace everyday and lead their companies through a set of values far removed from the value enhancing conceits of management consultants.
What seems to set aside great business people and their businesses from the pond life that mainly occupies executive positions is that they focus on things other than making money. These generally involve doing stuff that people actually want to pay good cash for, rather than an obsession with growth. Indeed, the last thing we should want is running our companies is people who are greedy for money, since the opportunities for unscrupulous executives to cheat us shareholders are huge.
Welch on Shareholder Value
The dangers of the concept of shareholder value are outlined by Jacques Reland who quotes Jack Welch with approval:
“On the face of it Shareholder Value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder Value is a result, not a strategy. Your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products”
Welch, of course, was the man behind the elevation of shareholder value to cult status in his time as CEO of General Electric, so this looks like…
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10 Things You Need To Know That Are Going On This Weekend
by ilene - May 1st, 2010 4:36 pm
SPECIAL EDITION: 10 Things You Need To Know That Are Going On This Weekend
Courtesy of Joe Weisenthal, at Clusterstock
It’s a Saturday, but it certainly doesn’t feel like it, because there’s a heck of a lot going on.
Here’s what you need to be paying attention to this May Day.
- The Berkshire Hathaway (BRK) annual shareholders meeting is happening right now. Already the company has reported monster Q1 profits, and both Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger have taken turns defending Goldman Sachs (GS), which is one of their portfolio companies. [See also: From One Pigman To Another....]
- Obama is flying to the Gulf Coast on Sunday morning to inspect the damage and response to the Deepwater Horizon oil crisis. The sense right now is that we’re looking at an environmental tragedy on the scale of Exxon Valdez, maybe worse, since there’s no short-term prospect of plugging the massive leak in the ground that’s spewing oil. Current estimates suggest BP (BP) is on the hook for at least $3 billion.
- Greece/IMF/EU talks continue. According to Greek government officials, some kind of announcement may be made today. The market is hoping to hear something that’s orders of magnitude stronger than any bailout announcement we’ve gotten so far, or otherwise the feeling will be that it can and will fall through again.
- Of course, there are fresh violent, anti-austerity protests going on today in Athens. The fact that it’s May Day, a day for celebrating anti-capitalism only adds to the tension.
- New reports suggest the criminal probe into Goldman Sachs is not just a perfunctory follow-on to the SEC charges, but rather a truly separate thing that’s wider than Abacus, and that started before the SEC’s investigation. HUGE.
- The New York-based Economic Cycle Research Institute says the economy is already beginning to slow.
- With just five days before the election, UK’s The Guardian has endorsed the Liberal Democrats, the country’s biggest third party. Its leader, Nick Clegg, has surged thanks to a string of strong debate performances, Gordon Brown’s disastrous campaigning, and a lingering sense of unease with the conservatives.
- Korea has confirmed that a torpedo sank the Cheonan, though it still won’t blame North Korea directly.
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Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.