Tuesday, December 16, 2008

No laughter into 2009

'No one will talk of EQ anymore. It will be EVA instead. Thinking outside the box will no longer be celebrated. Ticking the boxes will be.'

According to this article, HRD & CMO will be silently fading into the background while CFO is bound to be more indispensable despite putting up with steerage level of tight "financial leadership" and lingering in noncomfort zone. (EJ)

The year of the CFO

Economist, Nov 19th 2008
From The World in 2009 print edition
By Lucy Kellaway

Corporate life won't be funny

James Sillavan

PREPARE for the year of the finance director. In 2009 the world will find out just how bad corporate balance sheets really are, and companies—most of which escaped the early effects of the credit crunch—will start to find it trickier to raise money. Add to that the upward push in costs and downward slide in demand, and the chief financial officer (CFO) will be called upon to shore up the P&L too.

The implications of his ascendancy will be felt far beyond the figures and will last much longer than it takes to make them look healthy again. There will be a shift in the balance of power in the boardroom, which will affect how companies are managed, what it feels like to work in them, the culture of business and even its language.

For the past decade the prevailing wind in boardrooms has been gentle. Emotional intelligence and innovation have been what counted, and what leaders professed to value. But those ideas are all but finished. No one will talk of EQ ("emotional intelligence quotient") any more. It will be EVA ("economic value added") instead. Thinking outside the box (an over-rated activity at the best of times) will not be celebrated. Ticking boxes will be.

As financial skills are valued more highly, CFOs will make it to the corner office in greater numbers than before. Recession, credit crunch and the increasingly complex nature of global companies will all play directly into the bean counter's hands. Nominations committees will throw their trust behind the guy who has protected the creditworthiness of a company in hard times and won the trust of the market; they will pick him for the top slot rather than poaching an expensive star CEO from outside. This will be bad news for headhunters (who will vainly try to make good the shortfall by meddling in internal succession instead), but also bad news for CEOs' bank balances as top salaries will halt their ever-upward march.

Leadership style at the top will change. Big personalities have been out of fashion at the top for some years; in 2009 they will be more out than ever. However, egalitarianism and empowerment will also be on the way out; management by fiat is going to make a stealthy return.

In the boardrooms, the firm slap of leadership will be felt. "Execution" will no longer be a management fad, it will be a part of daily life. We will hear less of "vision" and much more of "value".

Goodbye "talent", hello "staff"

The biggest loser in the struggle for power will be the human resources director. In the past five years HR has been enjoying the greatest power it has ever had. The "war for talent", which companies have fought tooth and nail, will be over in 2008, neither lost nor won: there will be a ceasefire brought on by lack of funds and exhaustion of the troops. An old truth will be whispered by the brave: most workers are not terribly talented and most of them don't need to be, as most jobs don't require it. In 2009 a more elitist shift will occur: companies will worry about the performance of those at the top of the pyramid, while everyone else will be managed like a commodity. "Talent" will be a word we wave goodbye to. In 2009 the word "staff" will make a comeback, as will "headcount".

In this new world the HR director might just cling on to his title, but his job will be downgraded to personnel and in particular to payroll.

The marketing director will also lose out. He has already been kicked once by the decline of advertising and kicked again as the power of the internet has made his traditional tools useless. In 2009 his budgets will fall further, as will his status. As for the corporate-social-responsibility supremo, he will be told to take a gap year indefinitely.

Thinking outside the box (an over-rated activity at the best of times) will not be celebrated. Ticking boxes will be

The firm financial leadership will be welcome in that it will help companies survive, yet being a corporate foot-soldier in 2009 is not going to be enjoyable. Moaning will be on the rise as inexorably as expenses will be on the decline.

There will be less foreign travel, which will make work more efficient but duller. And there will be no more free champagne in first class—it will be steerage only. Expense-account lunches and subsidised health clubs will be slashed, and stationery cupboards will be thinly stocked.

One blessed thing will be cut: weekend offsite meetings in luxury hotels. Instead, if managers feel the need to bond at all it will be done more quickly over a cup of tea from the vending machine. There will be no more laughter workshops led by an outsourced facilitator—but then in the new world of 2009 there is not going to be a lot to laugh about.

Lucy Kellaway is a columnist at the Financial Times and author of "The Answers: All the Office Questions You Never Dared to Ask"



Thursday, November 20, 2008

The Power of Fair Value Accounting

It's somewhat a pleasant atmosphere to know that the occasionally at-odds relation (due to competition) between two major accounting bodies in Australia seems to be put aside when furthering the interests of the  accounting profession. If you read on, you'll see why it behooves them to be so for the sake of this more glorious cause.

In a joint letter signed by the CEOs of CPA Australia, ICAA, and NIA, the Joint Accounting Bodies wrote to Kevin Rudd ahead of the Prime Minister's attendance at the US-spearheaded G20 meeting in Washington 14-15 November 2008.

The first key aspect highlighted to the PM is a resounding conviction of the importance and usefulness of fair value accounting as opposed to historical cost method as being asserted by some commentators. Worse, some government leaders are also alleged to point their fingers to fair value measurement as the main culprit to the current market volatility we're experiencing recently.

The heads of these accounting bodies are unanimous, however, in their view that it would "place an unnecessary burden on capital providers to provide capital without having relevant fair value information to make decisions" based on up-to-date situation if everything is valued at their historical values.

In contrast, using fair value for measurement of assets and liabilities will provide more transparency and comparability of the actual state of a company's economic worth. This is despite them acknowledging that copping fair values of some financial assets and derivatives is not always as easy or possible.

The second issue also brought to attention is the need for 'financial reporting' to be segregated from 'prudential reporting' in the context of external reporting. The latter's purpose is to provide decision-useful financial information to the owners of the balance sheet's right hand side, namely investors and lenders (external users). The former's goal is to promote and maintain financial stability even in adverse circumstances, something that chiefly become the concern of the owners of the left hand side of the balance sheet, i.e. the management (internal users).

CPA, ICAA, and NIA wanted to ensure that the financial reporting standards are stringently adhered to cater to the capital providers' needs and, hence, recommended against such modifications as profit stabilisation or creative accounting that will only dress up the performance of the management. Doesn't the term 'prudential reporting' then sound too good to be dubbed  'prudential' in this kind of setting?
 
And lastly, they are also throwing in their firm support for the independence of IASB as the undisputed IAS setter. This is given the unexpected, alleged development that the G20 summit will appoint a new body in place of IASB (hmm, I didn't know that from the media!).

Overall, I am personally wondering whether this sort of deeply technical letter laden with accounting terms would ever attract the attention of our PM. And if it actually was, did the PM really voice these concerns to the world leaders? Once again, I have never read accounting issues ever discussed among them on newspapers. Anyway, what's important to the accounting profession has been done and conveyed properly and clearly to the highest authority in this country. (EJ)

Source: http://cpaupdate.cpaaustralia.com.au/cpalink/1019_31058?Division=New+South+Wales&Segment=The+Rest

Saturday, November 01, 2008

The 'keyless' Key Performance Indicators

The Essence of KPIs

Hmm, so what we say KPIs may not be the 'real' KPIs. Contrary to what many people believe, Key Performance Indicators should be truly the "key" and not just one of those numerous measures that are applied across different functions in an organisation.

Many companies set some KPIs to define their performance in certain areas. But too often, they are not true KPIs but simply PIs (performance indicators). Real examples may include timely creation of PO (purchase orders), percentage of POs approved within 24 hrs, timeliness of payments to suppliers, etc. They all are important performance measures but not necessarily KPIs. Read on and you would know why.

Much of the following is taken from 'Decision based reporting' white paper (2007), presented by David Parmenter of Waymark Solutions to CPA Australia.

There are three types of performance measures:
1. KRI (Key Result Indicator) => Tells you how you have done in a perspective.
Eg: Customer satisfaction, EBT, customers profitability, employee satisfaction, ROCE (Return on capital employed).

KRI information is intended to be presented to the Board, not for management, because they only show you if you're going in the right direction, but not tell you the solution to correct the situation if you're going the wrong way! KRIs are ideal tools for the Board (being BOD's role as "governance manager") to communicate the competence of the SMT (Senior Management Team).

2. PI (Performance Indicator) => Tells you what to do.
Eg: Profitability of top 10% of customers, net profit on key product lines, % increase in sales with top 10% of customers, participation of employees in suggestion scheme, duration of cash to cash cycle.

Performance indicators lie between KRI and KPI with varying merits which may be useful in balanced scorecards.

3. KPI (Key Performance Indicator) => Tells you what to do to increase performance dramatically.

Characteristics of the real KPIs:
* NON-financial measures (not expressed in any currency)
* Measured frequently (daily or 24/7)
* Acted upon CEO & Senior management team
* Understood by all staff and what corrective action is required
* Responsibility tied down to individual or team
* Have significant impact. Eg: impacting most of the core CSFs [Critical Success Factor] and more than one balanced scorecard perspective.
* Have positive impact (affecting all other performance measures positively)

One celebrated KPI case is when Lord King of Wartnaby, former chairman of British Airways turned around the company by focusing on one single key measure: delayed departure. He agreed that whenever a BA flight was delayed, he should be notified who would then call the managers to ask why. Very soon all sorts of inventive ways were introduced to catch up time on late planes and it was just 18 months before BA jets had a reputation for flying on time.


Board v. Management
KPI and PI are different from KRI as they are meant for the management, not for the BOD.

The Board get a "governance" dashboard made up of 5 to 8 KRIs. As for SMT, they will get a balanced scorecard comprising up to 20 performance measures (KPIs & PIs).

Next blog: How should we report KPIs?

Musing: The question is whether the so-called "KPI" imposed on you or your team is really KPI? If not, let's call it otherwise and get the fact straight! (EJ)

Tuesday, October 21, 2008

A Stiglitz Recipe to Survive the Crisis

Just as a cuisine recipe might not always translate into a real, intended piece of edible food being largely depending on the cook, an "economic nobel" recipe will likewise be not a guarantee to a factual relief. But at least we have the direction, the path towards the light of this hopefully not long dark tunnel of uncertainty. (EJ

Nobel Laureate: How to Get Out of the Financial Crisis

By Joseph Stiglitz Friday, Oct. 17, 2008

Specialist Thomas Laughlin works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Specialist Thomas Laughlin works at his post on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
Richard / AP

The amount of bad news over the past weeks has been bewildering for many people in the world. Stock markets have plunged, banks have stopped lending to one another, and central bankers and treasury secretaries appear daily on television looking worried. Many economists have warned that we are facing the worst economic crisis the world has seen since 1929. The only good news is that oil prices have finally started to come down.

While these times are scary and strange for many Americans, a number of people in other countries feel a sense of deja vu. Asia went through a similar crisis in the late 1990s, and various other countries (including Argentina, Turkey, Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Indonesia and South Korea) have suffered through banking crises, stock-market collapses and credit crunches.

Capitalism may be the best economic system that man has come up with, but no one ever said it would create stability. In fact, over the past 30 years, market economies have faced more than 100 crises. That is why I and many other economists believe that government regulation and oversight are an essential part of a functioning market economy. Without them, there will continue to be frequent severe economic crises in different parts of the world. The market on its own is not enough. Government must play a role.

It's good news that Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson seems to finally be coming around to the idea that the U.S. government needs to help recapitalize our banks and should receive stakes in the banks that it bails out. But more must be done to prevent the crisis from spreading around the world. Here's what it will take.

How We Got Here
The troubles we now face were caused largely by the combination of deregulation and low interest rates. After the collapse of the tech bubble, the economy needed a stimulus. But the Bush tax cuts didn't provide much stimulus to the economy. This put the burden of keeping the economy going on the Fed, and it responded by flooding the economy with liquidity. Under normal circumstances, it's fine to have money sloshing around in the system, since that helps the economy grow. But the economy had already overinvested, and so the extra money wasn't put to productive use. Low interest rates and easy access to funds encouraged reckless lending, the infamous interest-only, no-down-payment, no-documentation ("liar") subprime mortgages. It was clear that if the bubble got deflated even a little, many mortgages would end up under water — with the price less than the value of the mortgage. That has happened — 12 million so far, and more every hour. Not only are the poor losing their homes, but they are also losing their life savings.

The climate of deregulation that dominated the Bush-Greenspan years helped the spread of a new banking model. At its core was securitization: mortgage brokers originated mortgages that they sold on to others. Borrowers were told not to worry about paying the ever mounting debt, because house prices would keep rising and they could refinance, taking out some of the capital gains to buy a car or pay for a vacation. Of course, this violated the first law of economics — that there is no such thing as a free lunch. The assumption that house prices could continue to go up at a rapid pace looked particularly absurd in an economy in which most Americans were seeing their real incomes declining.

The mortgage brokers loved these new products because they ensured an endless stream of fees. They maximized their profits by originating as many mortgages as possible, with frequent refinancing. Their allies in investment banking bought them, sliced and diced the risk and then passed them on — or at least as much as they could. Our bankers forgot that their job was to prudently manage risk and allocate capital. They became gambling casinos — gambling with other people's money, knowing that the taxpayer would step in if the losses were too great. They misallocated capital, with massive amounts going into housing that was ultimately unaffordable. Loose money and light regulation were a toxic mixture. It exploded.

A Global Crisis
What made America's recklessness truly dangerous is that we exported it. A few months ago, some talked about decoupling — that Europe would carry on even as the U.S. suffered a downturn. I always thought that decoupling was a myth, and events have proven that right. Thanks to globalization, Wall Street was able to sell off its toxic mortgages around the world. It appears that about half the toxic mortgages were exported. Had they not been, the U.S. would be in even worse shape. Moreover, even as our economy went into a slowdown, exports kept the U.S. going. But the weaknesses in America weakened the dollar and made it more difficult for Europe to sell its goods abroad. Weak exports meant a weak economy, and so the U.S. exported our downturn just as earlier we had exported our toxic mortgages.

But now the problems are ricocheting back. The bad mortgages are contributing to forcing many European banks into bankruptcy. (We exported not only bad loans but also bad lending and regulatory practices; many of Europe's bad loans are to European borrowers.) And as market participants realized that the fire had spread from America to Europe, there was panic. Part of the concern is psychological. But part of it is because our financial and economic systems are closely intertwined. Banks all over the world lend and borrow from each other; they buy and sell complicated financial instruments — which is why bad regulatory practices in one country, leading to bad loans, can infect the global system.

How to Fix It
We are now facing a liquidity problem, a solvency problem and a macroeconomic problem. We are in the first phase of a downward spiral. It is, of course, part of the inevitable process of adjustment: returning housing prices to equilibrium levels and getting rid of the excessive leverage (debt) that had kept our phantom economy going.

Even with the new capital provided by the government, banks won't want to, or be able to, lend as much as they did in their reckless past. Homeowners won't want to borrow so much. Savings, which have been near zero, will go up — good for the economy in the long run but bad for an economy going into recession. While some large firms may be sitting on a bundle of cash, small firms depend on loans not just for investment but even for the working capital to keep going. That's going to be harder to come by. And the investment in real estate, which played such an important role in our modest growth of the past six years, has reached lows not seen in 20 years.

The Administration has veered from one half-baked solution to another. Wall Street panicked, but so did the White House, and in that panic, they had a hard time figuring out what to do. The weeks that Paulson and Bush spent pushing Paulson's orignal bailout plan — in the face of massive opposition — were weeks that could have been spent actually fixing the problem. At this point, we need a comprehensive approach. Another failed faint attempt could be disastrous. Here's a five-step, comprehensive approach:

1. Recapitalize banks. With all the losses, banks have insufficient equity. Banks will have a hard time raising this equity under current circumstances. The government needs to provide equity. In return, it should have voting stakes in the banks it helps. But equity injections also bail out bondholders. Right now the market is discounting these bonds, saying there is a high probability of default. There needs to be a forced conversion of this debt to equity. If this is done, the amount of government assistance that will be required will be much reduced.

It's good news that Treasury Secretary Paulson seems to finally realize that his original proposal of buying what he euphemistically called distressed assets was flawed. That Secretary Paulson took so long to figure this out is worrying. He was so bound by the idea of a free-market solution that he was unable to accept what economists of all stripes were telling him: that he needed to recapitalize the banks and provide new money to make up for the losses they incurred on their bad loans.

The Administration is now doing this, but three questions are raised: Was it a fair deal to the taxpayer? The answer to that seems fairly clear: taxpayers got a raw deal, evident by comparing the terms of Warren Buffet's injection of $5 billion into Goldman Sachs, and the terms extracted by the Administration. Second, is there enough oversight and restrictions to make sure that the bad practices of the past do not recur and that new lending does occur? Again, comparing the terms demanded by the U.K. and by the U.S. Treasury, we got the short end of the stick. For instance, banks can continue to pay out money to shareholders, as the government pours money in. Thirdly, is it enough money? The banks are so nontransparent that no one can fully answer the question, but what we do know is that the gaps in the balance sheet are likely to get bigger. That is because too little is being done about the underlying problem.

2. Stem the tide of foreclosures. The original Paulson plan is like a massive blood transfusion to a patient with severe internal hemorrhaging. We won't save the patient if we don't do something about the foreclosures. Even after congressional revisions, too little is being done. We need to help people stay in their homes, by converting the mortgage-interest and property-tax deductions into cashable tax credits; by reforming bankruptcy laws to allow expedited restructuring, which would bring down the value of the mortgage when the price of the house is below that of the mortgage; and even government lending, taking advantage of the government's lower cost of funds and passing the savings on to poor and middle-income homeowners.

3. Pass a stimulus that works. Helping Wall Street and stopping the foreclosures are only part of the solution. The U.S. economy is headed for a serious recession and needs a big stimulus. We need increased unemployment insurance; if states and localities are not helped, they will have to reduce expenditures as their tax revenues plummet, and their reduced spending will lead to a contraction of the economy. But to kick-start the economy, Washington must make investments in the future. Hurricane Katrina and the collapse of the bridge in Minneapolis were grim reminders of how decrepit our infrastructure has become. Investments in infrastructure and technology will stimulate the economy in the short run and enhance growth in the long run.

4. Restore confidence through regulatory reform. Underlying the problems are banks' bad decisions and regulatory failures. These must be addressed if confidence in our financial system is to be restored. Corporate-governance structures that lead to flawed incentive structures designed to generously reward ceos should be changed and so should many of the incentive systems themselves. It is not just the level of compensation; it is also the form — nontransparent stock options that provide incentives for bad accounting to bloat up reported returns.

5. Create an effective multilateral agency. As the global economy becomes more interconnected, we need better global oversight. It is unimaginable that America's financial market could function effectively if we had to rely on 50 separate state regulators. But we are trying to do essentially that at the global level.

The recent crisis provides an example of the dangers: as some foreign governments provided blanket guarantees for their deposits, money started to move to what looked like safe havens. Other countries had to respond. A few European governments have been far more thoughtful than the U.S. in figuring out what needs to be done. Even before the crisis turned global, French President Nicolas Sarkozy, in his address to the U.N. last month, called for a world summit to lay the foundations for more state regulation to replace the current laissez-faire approach. We may be at a new "Bretton Woods moment." As the world emerged from the Great Depression and World War II, it realized there was need for a new global economic order. It lasted more than 60 years. That it was not well adapted for the new world of globalization has been clear for a long time. Now, as the world emerges from the Cold War and the Great Financial Crisis, it will need to construct a new global economic order for the 21st century, and that will include a new global regulatory agency.

This crisis may have taught us that unfettered markets are risky. It should also have taught us that unilateralism can't work in a world of economic interdependence.

Going Forward
The next U.S. President will have a very hard time of it. Even the most well-thought-out plans may not work as intended. But I am confident that a comprehensive program along the lines I have suggested — stemming foreclosures, recapitalizing banks, stimulating the economy, protecting the unemployed, shoring up state finances, providing guarantees where needed and appropriate, reforming regulations and regulatory structures and replacing regulators and those with responsibility to protect the economy with those focused more on rescuing the economy than on rescuing Wall Street — will not only restore confidence but in due time also enable America to live up to its full potential. Halfway approaches, on the other hand, by continually bringing disappointment, are sure to fail.

In a country where money is respected, Wall Street's leaders used to have our respect. They had our trust. They were believed to be a font of wisdom, at least on economic matters. Times have changed. Gone is the respect and trust. Too bad, because financial markets are necessary for a well-functioning economy. But most Americans believe that Wall Streeters are more likely to put their interests ahead of those of the rest of the country, dressing it up in as fancy language as necessary. If the next President is seen to have his policies unduly shaped by Wall Street and those policies don't do the trick, his honeymoon will be short. That will be bad news for him, for the country and for the world.

Nobel laureate (2001) Stiglitz is University Professor at Columbia University. He was chief economist of the World Bank and chairman of President Clinton's Council of Economic Advisers

Sumber: Time, 17 Oct 08

Tuesday, October 07, 2008

Back to Economics 101?

If only the basic economics works and all economics perpetrators stick to it... (EJ)

Economics 101 - What the global meltdown means

  • Steve Keen
  • October 6, 2008

IN MAY 2007, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) commented that "the current economic situation is in many ways better than what we have experienced in years. Our central forecast remains indeed quite benign".

Three months later, the financial crisis began: the US stockmarket started its long decline and house prices fell. Financial institutions began to resemble tenpins rather than the pillars of society they had once been.

G4 leaders stop short of bailout

European leaders vow to help banks out at the end of an emergency summit in France to try to shore up confidence in the banking system.

A year later, the crisis has become even more extreme, with five more large international banks failing the weekend the US
Government devised a $US700 billion ($897 billion) bailout plan, only to have it rejected by Congress.

WHAT CAUSED THE CRISIS?

The immediate cause was the collapse in American house prices, which had doubled between January 2000 and August 2006, and have since fallen by 20%. More than 1% of American households have defaulted on their mortgages.

Up to a quarter of mortgages were "subprime", and fi nanced by the issuing of "residential mortgage-backed securities" rather than by traditional bank loans. The bonds were then sold to investors, pension funds and councils all over the world. Those buyers have since lost not just their anticipated interest but also much of their principal.

The bonds were also used by lenders to raise money through repo agreements - a contract in which one finance company sells another a bond in return for cash, and is then obligated to buy the same bond. By August 2007, so many households
had defaulted that the bond prices began to plunge, and suddenly lenders refused to accept them as collateral for loans.

The wholesale money market collapsed, and the credit crunch began. The long-term cause of the crisis was the dramatic growth in private debt in America - from a low of 37% of GDP in 1945 to 290% now - and across the OECD. The subprime fiasco was the final stage in a process that has seen lending extended to progressively riskier and less viable borrowers.

This final lending spree drove both stock and house prices to historically unprecedented levels, from which they are now falling, bankrupting both borrowers and lenders.

WHY DOES IT MATTER THAT THESE SUBPRIME BONDS ARE WORTHLESS?

The long-term problem is that buyers of these bonds are getting far lower returns than they expected from their investments. The money they used to buy the bonds has essentially been lost. They will have far less income - and far less capital - than they had anticipated and may face bankruptcy.

The more immediate problem is that, when the financial bubble was at its biggest, these bonds were the mainstay of the repo trade. Now no one wants to buy a bond in case the seller is unable to buy it back as promised. The repo market has
therefore dried up, and the bonds are effectively worthless.

However, many financial institutions still record the value of these bonds at the original sale price - their nominal or "book value" - rather than their market value.

If they were instead valued at what they could be sold for now, next to nothing, the recorded value of those companies' assets would fall, making them effectively insolvent and unable to lend. Their managers live in dread of some event forcing
them to do that - such as a distress sale by a company trying to avoid bankruptcy.

This is why the US rescue plan was devised: to buy these toxic bonds, euphemistically called "troubled assets", before the
fi nancial institutions were forced to value them.

If a global recession results from this crisis, it would be diffi cult for us to avoid a recession here as well.

WHAT IS THE US RESCUE PLAN?

The plan involves the US treasury buying up to $US700 billion worth of "troubled assets" from financial institutions, then covering that cost by selling $US700 billion in new government bonds to the public.

SO WOULD THE PLAN WORK?

That's very hard to say, but the details are not promising. This is a rescue plan devised by people who didn't see the crisis coming in the first place - otherwise they would never have allowed subprime loans to be created. If they didn't understand
the problem with subprimes, then it's possible they don't understand the system they're now trying to rescue.

Even the amount nominated, almost US$150 billion more than the US has spent on the war in Iraq, was not chosen in any scientific way. A US treasury spokeswoman told Forbes magazine: "It's not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number."

There's also the problem of how much the plan would pay for these toxic bonds. The initial proposal was to set the price through a "reverse auction": start by offering a low purchase price, and progressively increase it until individual financial
corporations decide to sell.

However, this could result in sales by more solvent firms at prices that would bankrupt less solvent ones, so it is likely that this, and many other, aspects of the plan will change in time - if it is passed into law by Congress.

If the US financial system is to continue, then the assets of financial institutions must be increased - and this bailout would enable them to replace some of their impaired assets with $US700 billion in cash. But this could still cause a significant fall in their assets, depending on the sale price. And the book value of outstanding mortgage debt is $US14 trillion. With mortgage defaults at unprecedented levels and still on the rise, there's no guarantee the plan is big enough to succeed.

SO HOW DOES ALL THIS AFFECT AUSTRALIA?

In our globalised fi nancial system, crises anywhere can cause ructions elsewhere. Banks and investors throughout the world hold CDOs linked to the American crisis, so that bankruptcies in the US can damage the financial security of a municipal council in Australia.

ARE COMPARISONS WITH THE GREAT DEPRESSION JUSTIFIED?

The real comparison now is with the financial crisis that preceded the Great Depression, centred on the stockmarket collapse of 1929. Then, despite a 36% fall in the share index that year, all the Wall Street merchant banks made it through
the Great Depression.

This time, all fi ve Wall Street behemoths have either failed (Lehman Brothers), been taken over at bargain-basement prices
(Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch), or have sought to change their status to that of commercial banks before they failed (Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs). And the expected economic downturn has only begun. So the financial crisis is much worse than in 1929.

So is the level of private debt. When the 1929 crisis began, America's private debt was equivalent to 1.5 years of the nation's GDP.

It is now equivalent to 2.9 years of GDP - and that doesn't include the net debt involved in the $US500 trillion derivatives market. So the debt situation is almost twice as bad.

One attenuating factor is that the US is not as economically dominant as in the 1920s, and the emerging economies of China and India may counteract America's downturn.

But the US is still the world's largest economy, and many other OECD nations are as indebted as the US. How the now widely expected economic downturn compares to the Great Depression remains to be seen.

Associate Professor Steve Keen is from the school of economics and finance at the University of Western Sydney.

http://www.theage.com.au/national/education/economics-101--what-the-global-meltdown-means-20081006-4urk.html?page=-1

Thursday, October 02, 2008

IFRS: Off or on balance sheet?

IFRS seems to be the world financial language nowadays. This excerpt below highlights one of the key aspects in US GAAP that diverge from IFRS. Shall we be forgiven for thinking this might be one variable that lurks behind all the recent hype around the globe with the torrential collapses of American (and now European) financial giants?  (EJ)
 

Harder to keep assets off the balance sheet under IFRS

While the SEC deliberates over whether to broaden its use of IFRS, one crucial difference between US and international accounting standards is their approach to what instruments/liabilities may be kept off the balance sheet. Under current US accounting rules, certain loans such as those linked to risky mortgages and credit card debt, can be kept off balance sheet in vehicles known as qualified special purpose entities (QSPEs). Under IFRS, the central idea is control and it is a more principles-based approach, which makes it difficult to design something in such a way that it is kept off the company's balance sheet. Deutsche Bank managing director Charlotte Jones said at an accounting roundtable event that one of the most difficult parts of the conversion from US GAAP to IFRS in 2006 for Deutsche Bank was the requirement to consolidate a lot of their QSPEs (more than 200) that were kept off the balance sheet under US GAAP. Jones said that although it required more work, the IFRS control-oriented approach presents a more realistic picture of where the entity stands economically.

Source: http://www.ey.com/global/content.nsf/Australia/In_balance

Friday, September 26, 2008

walking down the bank route...

Aswath Damodaran is the author of Corporate Finance: Theory & Practice, one of the required textbooks used in my 'university' days and one that I found very contentful. This piece is from his blog. /  EJ
 
The End of Investment Banking?
Aswath Damodaran
 
* 22-Sep-08 *  THE BIG NEWS of the morning is that Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley will reorganize themselves as bank holding companies, thus ending a decades-long experiment with stand-alone public investment banking. Before we buy into the hyperbole that this represents the end of of investment banking as we know it, it behooves to us to look both back in time and into the future and examine the implications. 
 
Independent investment banks have been in existence for a long time, but for much of their existence, they were private partnerships that made the bulk of their profits from transactions and as advisors. They seldom put their own capital at risk, largely because they had so little to begin with and it was their own money (partners). Part of the impetus in their going public was the need to raise more capital, which in turn, freed them to indulge in more capital-intensive businesses including proprietary trading. That model worked well for much of the last two decades, but three things (in my view) destroyed it.
 
The first was that it became easier to access low cost, short term debt (especially in the last few years) to fund the capital bets that these firms were making, whether in mortgage backed securities or in other investments. The second was that the compensation structure at investment banks encouraged bad risk-taking, since it rewarded risk-takers for upside gains (extraordinary bonuses tied to trading profits) and punished them inadequately for the downside (at worst, you lost your job but you were not required to disgorge bonuses in prior years... in many cases, finding another trading job on the Street or at a hedge fund was not difficult to do even for the most egregious violators). The third was a patchwork of government regulation that was often exploited by investors to make risky bets and to pass the risk on elsewhere, while pocketing the returns. The combination worked in deadly fashion these last two years to devastate the capital bases at these institutions. Lehman, Bear Stearns and Merrill have fallen...
 
So, what will change now that Goldman and Morgan Stanley have chosen the bank route? The plus is that it opens more sources of long term capital since they can now attract deposits from investors. Having never done this before, they start off at a disadvantage. The minus is that they will now be covered by banking regulation, where the equity capital they be required to have will be based upon the risk of their investments. This will effectively mean that they will need more equity capital, if they want to keep taking high risk investments, or that they will have to bring down the risk exposure on their investments. My guess is that they would have gone down one of these roads anyway. In pragmatic terms, it will also mean that their returns on equity at investment banks will drop to banking levels - more in the low teens than in the low twenties. I think the stock prices for both investment banks already reflects this expectation.
 
Ultimately, Goldman and Morgan Stanley have sent a signal to the market that they are willing to accept a more restrictive risk taking system. In today's market, that may be the best signal to send. There will be times in the future, where I am sure that they will regret the restrictions that come with this signal, but they had no choice. (http://aswathdamodaran.blogspot.com/2008/09/end-of-investment-banking.html)
 

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Dealing with AutoFilter

EXCEL TIPS: AutoFilter in a Messy Data Table

Work situation:
You have just exported a large amount of data into Excel or converted a .txt file into an .xls file. The data automatically sits in a table-like manner on your spreadsheet but it looks disorganised. You want to manipulate the data table using AutoFilter to speed up removing the blank rows that clutter around and through the entire range of the table.

Problem:
However, when you activate the AutoFilter & click the drop-down arrows of the column headings, they only display the basic criteria (Sort Ascending/Descending, All, Top 10, Custom) but where is the data? This is due to the blank rows between the headers and the first row of data.

Solution:
Turn off AutoFilter first. In order for Excel to treat your whole range of data as being one single table, highlight the entire table range. And turn the AutoFilter back on. Done! Now each column heading should show all the data underneath it. (EJ)

Friday, August 08, 2008

TGIF 8-8-8

Sydney, 8th August 2008

To a great number of people worldwide, today may be an auspicious day thanks to the unusually consecutive 8-8-8 in the numerical system of international date that we use (both AD & BC). And hence these couples intentionally preset this special date as their nuptials & say their once-only sacred vow.

To the greatest nation on earth centred in Beijing, this date marks the end of their long-awaited day being the host of the world's biggest event and the proud beginning of massive demonstration of the rich, splendid Chinese culture and civilisation embedded in the festive Opening Ceremony currently underway at these hits of letters on my keyboard.

To all nations and even a greater number of people, it is time to revel & be merry as mankind are united in this universal Olympic spirit as well as cheer their national sports warriors on to go swifter, higher, and stronger for more golds than any other country to top the medal tally of this Games of the XXIX Olympiad.

To me, I wish it were just another day, another TGIF day to look forward to for the morrow. But somehow I've got myself a bit carried away by the globally ubiquitous delight... with quite a distinct, personal reason, though. That it is on this very day too I have been privileged to officially become a CPA (Certified Practising Accountant) of CPA Australia.

So, what else to utter than a relieved, lengthy "finally...... thank You, Lord! I can't believe this."

(Emil Jayaputra CPA)

Tuesday, June 17, 2008

Benefit of the Doubt

It is almost a certainty that most common words have their translation in another language. When it doesn't, it should have its nearest equivalence at the very least. There are many a fitting example for this. Take 'membina' for example. There is no exact rendering of this vocabulary in English. The nearest one is perhaps ‘to train’ or ‘to cultivate’ despite still not reflecting its whole meaning. On the other hand, an idiom does have a much greater probability of not being able to be translated into a target language due mainly to local culture and tradition. For instance, the metaphor ‘si jago merah’ cannot be literally translated into ‘the mighty red’ since it doesn’t mean anything to English native speakers. Or ‘pagar makan tanaman’ (plant eating fence) would be even more difficult to be explained in English than ‘si jago merah’ that could merely be written ‘the enormous fire’.

It is also true with English being a language rich with idioms whose meaning cannot instantly be put across in Bahasa because there is really no idiom or similar expression equivalent to it in Bahasa. If the title of this writing is literally rendered as 'Manfaat Keraguan', it would be just meaningless in Bahasa. To the contrary, this 'benefit of the doubt' idiom has been part of daily choice of verbal/written expression among English native speakers but which we may not have observed and put to use in life.

There was a season where I had been thinking of how a doubt could have a benefit? Or what is the benefit when I'm doubtful? This particular expression turned out to be directed from the first person (I) to the third person (him/her) or the second person (you). When I have some doubt on somebody over an uncertainty of a problem, I had better give him the benefit of the doubt. This means I decide to trust him and put aside any negative thought thay may otherwise be possible (and even logical) resulting from what he had allegedly said or done.

The other intention to give somebody the benefit of the doubt is that we offer the other party a second chance to confirm our doubt over the seemingly unbecoming indications that we have observed at first sight -- which may well be wrong and unreliable. An analysis of the term 'benefit of the doubt' will sort of discover two sides, bright and dark. Giving the benefit of the doubt means showing the bright side of the doubt and trust (once more) that our brother may not be as (bad as) we thought.

An example of application. Someone you know very well has been rumored to harbor an ill-fated intention or show mannerism by some certain people. You can help scotch the 'fire' from spreading by saying to each other: "People tell me we can't trust him anymore, but I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt." And go on to clarify the uncertain issue with the person directly. Someone in central position like a public figure or a church leader who oftentimes have to make public statements or reports need the benefit of the doubt from all of us, members of the public nationwide.

In essence, each one of us needs not only to give but also receive the benefit of the doubt in daily life. A life laden with the ongoing learning process of interpersonal communication, mingling with the inner and near circle of people in society, but above all in the network of family and friends. The need for the benefit of the doubt may well arise at any given time. When you know someone with high integrity has been severely disgraced due to an alleged scandal and you know that person has not been allowed a chance to defend himself, you are in a fitting position to give him the benefit of the doubt. Even in simple cases when you’re waiting for a friend to reply to your important email and it’s already a week or so that the expected response has not hit your inbox, you still need to offer this benefit to your friend. Well, it’s hard, though. I need to sort of struggle within myself to having to extend this benefit to them. My flesh nature would just form a judgment, but this particular writing of mine keeps reminding me not to.

That’s why the spotlight of this language corner does fall upon the idiom ‘benefit of the doubt’ itself from man to man that we need to understand both its definition & context in the native language, and not upon the single word benefit or doubt separately. What is certain, though, out of the wealth of a language we can all learn to make this world a more lovely & peaceful big house provided the inhabitants give the benefit of the doubt to each other generously. Despite hard and it is never easy. (EJ)


Note: This piece first appeared on Reformedia Bulletin Volume IX (IRC Sydney).

Friday, January 18, 2008

Responding Insistence & Non-responding behavior

WE ARE NOWADAYS privileged (if not spoiled) to make communication with one another through numerous ways and means. Long gone are the days where you can only be in touch with your far-away family members by posted letter or at a later stage by the conventional so-called landline telephone. At the very least, we are now able to reach anyone almost anywhere at anytime thanks to the mobile phone, or simply text short messages using the same device unless conversation is necessary, send a free e-mail in just seconds, or make long-distance photocopying (fax). We can even talk for free on the Internet using the likes of Skype or MSN Messenger in our spare time.

Some people, though, have a "home-made" insistence that if you try to reach someone by mobile phone but failed for any reason, the person contacted should return their call by phone too. If you send a text to someone, they should reply by SMS too. So their view is that it is not appropriate for you to send an email in response to a missed call that you received from someone. While I do respect this principle, let me take you to reality where this is not always practical and eventually inappropriate to being dubbed 'discourteous'.

Let's say this morning you've got a casual email from your brother overseas telling you that he's planning to get married this year. You're surprised and have so many things to question him about this plan. But you're quite busy at work that you have little time to reply to him by email, so you decide to ring him at home tonight instead. Is there anything wrong with this (email returned by phone)?

On another fine day, you heard a beeping tone on your mobile and opened the message from an old school friend saying that she's got your mobile number from another friend and she gave you her office email address as well in the message. You found yourself hilarious to find her again, and decided to just email her in response to the SMS thinking you'd be unrestricted to just 160-character (max.limit of 1 phone message) in expressing your joy and sharing all your recent updates with her plus asking for more detailed news surrounding her. In doing this, you've also let her know that you received her text message. Is there anything wrong with this (SMS returned by email)?

On one Saturday afternoon, you had a missed phone call from a work colleague. But you happened to learn of the missed call only in the evening around 10pm. You don't want to ring him that late knowing he has kids sleeping already, but you know it's very unusual for him to call you at such time and that call might be important. So you decided to text him a short message following up the missed call which he then quickly replied by SMS too. Is there anything wrong with this (phone call returned by SMS)?

Just from these three daily situations, any sane person should be able to conclude that there's really nothing wrong with a different way of responding to someone's trying to communicate with us. Which all come back to one's personal or specific circumstances and levels of urgency/importance of the message of the sender. The most important thing is that we make sure we do RESPOND to the person back, and so communication transpires in both ways.

The unacceptable thing (and hence discourteous) is when and if the person you emailed, SMS, or phone never reply your message (which clearly requires their response) as if you had never said anything to them before. They simply ignored you pretending they didn't know the answer or even worse they disagree on what you said/wrote but somehow are too timid to show you their differing opinion and therefore just staying silent to the end of the world.

To recap, mutual response is primary and crucial since it is the substance of communication. But how the response is delivered, it may be a secondary subject to one's personal circumstances as detailed above. Let the primary be the first which is sort of uncompromised, and treat the secondary flexible enough, not vice versa. (EJ)