Saturday, September 4, 2010

VW Veneer reveals BMW heart




While waiting to get my fish and chips order today for lunch, while out planting some trees for a client I started reading an article by Deborah Hill Cone in the Friday September 3rd edition of the Business Herald lift-out (5 year old "Womans Days" with Rach & Rod on the cover don't do it for me anymore) and what was she writing about?

Yep the man without a plan, the man everyone loves to hate, formally the richest man in Timaru (where is that again?) Allan Hubbard.

I wasn't going to go back there but after my order of 1 chips and a scoop arrived (that is what they call it in the Hawkesbay where I lived my formative years) I just had to keep reading.

Debs made some really good points.

We already know the financial shenanigans and shell games Mr Hubbard and his good mates were up to with other peoples moola but Debs, (I can call her that because I live in Auckland and we are a close knit family up here too) as she does, came at things with quite a unique angle.

She was looking at the intensely close, almost incestuous nature of the order of things in the part of the country that Hubbard and his mates come from.

This she contends, dates back from early settlers who arrived in boats from old mother England and continued their class distinctions in their new land that shows today in the back slapping, secret handshaking, old schoolboy network that supported Mr Hubbard and that supports him to this day. This New Zealand breed of wannabe aristocrats didn't like to flaunt their wealth Though.

She described them well as the airtex wearing, holey jumpered men who looked like paupers but were actually well to do and their lady companions who "wore their collars upturned".

It was kinda like an awe shucks look at me mentality I'm so down to earth, I must be I'm dressed like a bum.

Witness the epitome of this in Mr Hubbard. New Zealands answer to Warren Buffett, who is well known for his frugality and homespun hokiness - he would call it old fashioned. Mr Hubbard is top to toe well-worn Hallensteins circa 1950 and even drives a beat up VW which doesn't look like it has seen much back seat action (if at all) since it was bought by him in the 1960s.

Of course at at one stage though the NBR valued this man a half a billion.

That is of course when this whole charade unravels into reality.

These strange people in this clique of people down there in the Canterbury area (If you are reading this and actually flaunt your wealth like most Aucklanders then I am probably not talking about you) stick together like a Parnell Girl to her Takapuna Grammar old boy 10 years her senior and the motivation for support of Allan Hubbard seems connected to the tribe mentality of looking after the individuals in the pack, should the whole tribes reputation suffer a mortal moral, legal or in this case financial gaping wound.

If I maybe serious for one moment, this appears to be the reason why the main pack behind support for Allan Hubbard, the old boys network of Canterbury ( I am a bit jealous because Onehunga High School where I hail from doesn't have this sort of network) is rallying the ignorant, angry, lonely hoi poloi around them in the hope that the herd will stop the all important old boys network from a fatal blow.

This sort of protection of the big fish is great if you can get it and the network in and around Christchurch and Timaru are doing a sterling job of circling the wagons in the face of the reality of even bigger fish from the Serious Fraud Office and forensic auditors crawling so far up Mr Hubbard's backside not even a Christchurch Boys High School old boy could get a finger up there let alone anything else.

I had a different opinion of the support for Mr Hubbard, I thought it was sheer ignorance and stupidity (well?) but my good mate Debs up here in Auckland has convinced me it is mostly about protectionism; of a group that has always seen itself as the ones who make the decisions and wield the power over ordinary folk like you and me.

Amazing what you can find in yesterdays fish and chip paper huh?


Related Share Investor Reading

Download Grant Thornton Report 1
Download Grant Thornton Report 2

VIDEO: Jenni McManus Explains Allan Hubbard Collapse
Allan Hubbard Statement on SCF Receivership
VIDEO: Sandy Maier - full news conference on SCF R...s
Market Alert: South Canterbury Finance to be placed in Receivership
Allan Hubbard: Ignorant Supporters Blissfully Unaware
Thornton Report 2: Allan Hubbard Guilty as Charged
Allan Hubbard: Full TV3 Interview - July 16 2010
Thornton Report: Allan Hubbard's Aorangi Securities
Whatever happened to? Muriel Dunn
Bothered by Simon Botherway
Allied Farmers: Prosecutions should be on the cards
Allied Farmers Fraud passes with little fanfare
Allied Farmers: What's it Worth?
Hanover, Allied Farmers deal more of the same
Jane Diplock Q & A Interview
Hanover's "White Knights" are really daylight robbers
Hanover collapse: It was just a matter of time
Money Managers Saga: 3 Story wrap
Money Managers gives First Step investors the middle finger
Greed is bad: Geneva Finance Folds
Financial 101: Learn before you leap
Kevin's Blog


Recommended Amazon Reading


The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A     Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition)
The Intelligent Investor: The Definitive Book on Value Investing. A Book of Practical Counsel (Revised Edition) by Benjamin Graham
Buy new: $14.95 / Used from: $7.50
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Buy The Intelligent Investor & more @ Fishpond.co.nz

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c Share Investor 2010


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VW Veneer reveals BMW heart



While waiting to get my fish and chips order today for lunch, while out planting some trees for a client I started reading an article by Deborah Hill Cone in the Friday September 3rd edition of the Business Herald lift-out (5 year old "Womans Days" with Rach & Rod on the cover don't do it for me anymore) and what was she writing about?

Yep the man without a plan, the man everyone loves to hate, formally the richest man in Timaru (where is that again?) Allan Hubbard.

I wasn't going to go back there but after my order of 1 chips and a scoop arrived (that is what they call it in the Hawkesbay where I lived my formative years) I just had to keep reading.

Debs made some really good points.

We already know the financial shenanigans and shell games Mr Hubbard and his good mates were up to with other peoples moola but Debs, (I can call her that because I live in Auckland and we are a close knit family up here too) as she does, came at things with quite a unique angle.

She was looking at the intensely close, almost incestuous nature of the order of things in the part of the country that Hubbard and his mates come from.

This she contends, dates back from early settlers who arrived in boats from old mother England and continued their class distinctions in their new land that shows today in the back slapping, secret handshaking, old schoolboy network that supported Mr Hubbard and that supports him to this day. This New Zealand breed of wannabe aristocrats didn't like to flaunt their wealth Though.

She described them well as the airtex wearing, holey jumpered men who looked like paupers but were actually well to do and their lady companions who "wore their collars upturned".

It was kinda like an awe shucks look at me mentality I'm so down to earth, I must be I'm dressed like a bum.

Witness the epitome of this in Mr Hubbard. New Zealands answer to Warren Buffett, who is well known for his frugality and homespun hokiness - he would call it old fashioned. Mr Hubbard is top to toe well-worn Hallensteins circa 1950 and even drives a beat up VW which doesn't look like it has seen much back seat action (if at all) since it was bought by him in the 1960s.

Of course at at one stage though the NBR valued this man a half a billion.

That is of course when this whole charade unravels into reality.

These strange people in this clique of people down there in the Canterbury area (If you are reading this and actually flaunt your wealth like most Aucklanders then I am probably not talking about you) stick together like a Parnell Girl to her Takapuna Grammar old boy 10 years her senior and the motivation for support of Allan Hubbard seems connected to the tribe mentality of looking after the individuals in the pack, should the whole tribes reputation suffer a mortal moral, legal or in this case financial gaping wound.

If I maybe serious for one moment, this appears to be the reason why the main pack behind support for Allan Hubbard, the old boys network of Canterbury ( I am a bit jealous because Onehunga High School where I hail from doesn't have this sort of network) is rallying the ignorant, angry, lonely hoi poloi around them in the hope that the herd will stop the all important old boys network from a fatal blow.

This sort of protection of the big fish is great if you can get it and the network in and around Christchurch and Timaru are doing a sterling job of circling the wagons in the face of the reality of even bigger fish from the Serious Fraud Office and forensic auditors crawling so far up Mr Hubbard's backside not even a Christchurch Boys High School old boy could get a finger up there let alone anything else.

I had a different opinion of the support for Mr Hubbard, I thought it was sheer ignorance and stupidity (well?) but my good mate Debs up here in Auckland has convinced me it is mostly about protectionism; of a group that has always seen itself as the ones who make the decisions and wield the power over ordinary folk like you and me.

Amazing what you can find in yesterdays fish and chip paper huh?


Related Share Investor Reading

Download Grant Thornton Report 1
Download Grant Thornton Report 2

VIDEO: Jenni McManus Explains Allan Hubbard Collapse
Allan Hubbard Statement on SCF Receivership
VIDEO: Sandy Maier - full news conference on SCF R...s
Market Alert: South Canterbury Finance to be placed in Receivership
Allan Hubbard: Ignorant Supporters Blissfully Unaware
Thornton Report 2: Allan Hubbard Guilty as Charged
Allan Hubbard: Full TV3 Interview - July 16 2010
Thornton Report: Allan Hubbard's Aorangi Securities
Whatever happened to? Muriel Dunn
Bothered by Simon Botherway
Allied Farmers: Prosecutions should be on the cards
Allied Farmers Fraud passes with little fanfare
Allied Farmers: What's it Worth?
Hanover, Allied Farmers deal more of the same
Jane Diplock Q & A Interview
Hanover's "White Knights" are really daylight robbers
Hanover collapse: It was just a matter of time
Money Managers Saga: 3 Story wrap
Money Managers gives First Step investors the middle finger
Greed is bad: Geneva Finance Folds
Financial 101: Learn before you leap
Kevin's Blog


Recommended Fishpond Reading


Crisis: One Central Bank Governor and the Global Financial Collapse

Buy The Intelligent Investor & more @ Fishpond.co.nz

Fishpond


c Share Investor 2010

Mondrian Investment Partners take stake in Fisher & Paykel Healthcare

Mondrian Investment Partners yesterday become a substantial shareholder in Fisher & Paykel Healthcare Ltd [FPH.NZX].

The fund manager disclosed they took a 5.01 percent stake after purchasing 483,566 shares on September 1.

This is the first shareholding the private investment company has taken in FPH and they give the following reasons for their investment choices:

"We invest in stocks where rigorous discounted cash flow analysis isolates value in terms of the long-term flow of dividends. Dividend yield and future real growth play a central role in our decision making process and over time the dividend component will be a meaningful portion of expected total return."

Hard to know who the seller was but at an educated guess it was probably The Capital Group Companies, Inc who had a 4.92% stake in February 2010 and at that disclosure had sold an almost 1% stake since they disclosed their 5.08% holding in June 2009.

FPH has had a number of stakeholders in the 5% range over the last few years but it seems even though they have stated at time of purchase that their investments are long term they have exited after a few years.

This company is a great long-term investment, one of the best growth propositions on the NZX, so any company taking a substantial holding needs to be patient when investing. They are not going to make big term gains in a few years.

The big gains will be seen 7-10 years.


Disclosure I own FPH shares in the Share Investor Portfolio

Fisher & Paykel Healthcare @ Share Investor

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Discuss FPH @ Share Investor Forum

Download FPH Company Reports

From Fishpond.co.nz

Bird on a Wire: The Inside Story from a Straight Talking CEO

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Friday, September 3, 2010

VIDEO: Jenni McManus Explains Allan Hubbard Collapse







Source: NZI Business Sept 2: Fairfax Media briefing with Jenni Mc Mannus


Few people watch NZI business at 6.00am but I occasionally do when I am getting my little girl ready for daycare. This is worth a look if you want to get your brain around Allan Hubbard and his failure at South Canterbury Finance (SCF), Aorangi Securities, Hubbard Funds Management and other divisions of his former business.

Jenni explains the saga over Allan Hubbard and the goings on at his business empire better than anyone else.

Known for her dispassionate focus on facts in terms of business commentary and investigation Jenni zones in on the following key points:

1. Disclosure and transparency of the SCF loan book has always been a problem and a big issue for Jenni.

2. SCF strayed from its core lending under Hubbard. A big reason for his empire collpse.

3. Lachie Mcleod, former CEO of SCF, was lent $15 million to buy shares in SCF with no interest by one of Hubbard's investment vehicles - big questions as to whether this was typical of the lending practices of Hubbard's business interests.

4. Hubbard made decisions without board approval or indeed reference.

5. The statutory management process made clear what was going on all the time. The second Grant Thornton Report is an important document that reveals typical financial processes of the company; hidden loans, inter-party lending, ghost assets. Statutory management had no bearing on the collapse of SCF or any other part of the business.

6. Insufficient due diligence done on finance companies let into the Govt guarantee - well duh.


The probability is, after more poking around in balance sheets and records, that the kinds of loans made by Hubbard and associated companies that will be disclosed will reveal a litany of embarrassing and possibly fraudulent loans and the relevance of the Serious Fraud Office part will become very clear.

You would have to say though that Allan Hubbard isn't alone in his financial skulduggery. Auditors, accountants and advisers to Hubbard and his former business have questions to answer as the SFO case unravels and a further report from Grant Thornton comes latter on this month. What is clear at present is that Mr Hubbard needs to take the biggest responsibility for the failure as he was the head and CEO of SCF.

From this reading, supporters of Mr Hubbard appear to be chasing a dead dog that will lead to further embarrassment of the kind already heaped upon them from the mainstream media that previously supported their stance.

See Chris Lee for an interesting "inside" look.