JPM - Fun, Fast and Furious

Lehman Brothers : Enron while Ernst & Young : Arthur Andersen

MUST WATCH! Enough drama in this interview... with the famous Eliot Spitzer (the cheeky guy!). Once again, everyone is looking for someone to blame. Start with the CEO, end with the Auditors, now also include the Government. America is really scr****. Period.

Retweet Loading mentions
Filed under  //   arthur andersen   auditors   ernst young   fraud   lehman brothers   off balance sheet   report   scams  

Comments [0]

Words of Investing Wisdom - Value Investing

(download)

Came across this interesting collection of wise words from some of the best value investors out there… all I can say is that we’re fortunate to stand on the shoulders of giants before us.

Retweet Loading mentions
Filed under  //   quotes   value investing   wisdom  

Comments [0]

Private Equity in MENA 2010

(download)

An interesting report that highlights the number of deals done in the region. Certainly a slowdown – though many take time to admit it. Hat tip to Biju.

Retweet Loading mentions

Comments [0]

P.S. Come By Rail - Warren Buffett

(download)

Every year Warren Buffett opens up to his shareholders. Fortunately, I’m one – a small one nonetheless. Fortunately, his openness isn’t just limited to us shareholders. You can visit http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/ for some good information. Meanwhile, you can read the letter to shareholders and learn a lot more.

Retweet Loading mentions

Comments [0]

Money isn't everything

Retweet Loading mentions

Comments [0]

Tata - Too Good To Fail

I’m sure you’ve heard of the Nano – the world’s cheapest car. In that case, you’ve heard about Tata. Here’s an excellent piece from Strategy & Business on Tata – Too Good To Fail.

Retweet Loading mentions

Comments [0]

Where did all the bankers go ?

Each of these firms saw an increase in the LinkedIn activity of their employees, measured by member registrations or updates to the individual’s company title on LinkedIn. This activity coincided with key corporate announcements such as the acquisition of Merrill Lynch by Bank Of America, or the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy announcement.

Talent flow during the financial collapse (Source: LinkedIn Data)

Where did all these employees go?  One hypothesis is that many of the employees left the financial industry.  According to the LinkedIn data set, that just isn’t true. There are a handful of people that did transition to other industries and start new careers, but most stayed in the financial space. To be specific, other than two acquiring companies (Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch and Nomura acquired Lehman Brothers’ franchise in the Asia Pacific region), Barclays was by far the biggest beneficiary, scooping up 10% of the laid off talent, followed by Credit Suisse at 1.5% and Citigroup at 1.1 %.

Retweet Loading mentions

Comments [2]

7 Investment Tools For Successful Investing

Keep your axe sharp.... that was the best advice I ever received.

People say that you shouldn't blame your tools. I agree, having the wrong tools is your fault! (So don't blame game them!) I'm no suggesting you have the state of the art. You just need the basics to help you with investing. I'll share with you the basics.

Investment Tool #1
Invest some good money in a decent computer. I used to use Dell with Windows. However, I've switched to Mac - and won't be turning back. Macs' are costlier upfront - but they're more stable and reliable. The only thing I really miss was Excel. However, there's a way around - get yourself VMWare Fusion and you can run Windows environment on your Mac (with Microsoft Office)! Whatever... get a good and reliable computer. Period.

Investment Tool #2
High Speed Broadband Internet Connection. Don't skimp on this. I'm not suggesting you go for the 21Mb connection - a 1 Mb will do just fine for starters. But don't skimp here. You need to be connected - both from the point of view of researching, trading and investing. If you have a faster connection - you can stream information via the various news channels straight to your desktop. No need to pickup the remote for the TV and get distracted.

Investment Tool #3
Get a simple BIG calculator. Yes, I know that sounds stupid - but before I tell you about the remaining tools, you just need one. Simple calculations without the need to move a mouse is always good.

Investment Tool #4
Buy a spreadsheet program. If you're on Mac - you have Numbers, if you're on PC - you can opt between Microsoft Office (preferable) or Open Office. Whatever you chose - get familiar with the programme - the time you spend getting to know your software will save you countless hours! I use spreadsheets to keep a track of my portfolio, conduct analysis of financial statements, asset allocation, seeing the returns (and losses sometimes). This is going to be your key tool.

Investment Tool #5
Online Discount Brokerage. How else are you going to put in those trades? Oh, yes you can call your broker - but our objective is to do everything ourselves as far as possible and save money. The famous ones include TD Ameritrade, ETrade and ThinkOrSwim (which is now acquired by TD Ameritrade). You should have both web-based trading screen access as well as any downloadable software. I use ThinkOrSwim - although its mainly meant for traders - I learn alot from it and find it easier and faster to use.

Investment Tool #6
Research Sites. There are plenty of sites out there. But I only need a few of them. And the ones I use are free. Google Finance is a real great site. Highly recommended. Yahoo Finance has always been a favourite for many - but I prefer Google, they also have screening tools, excellent graphs, links to news articles, blogs, portfolio, watchlists, financials - the works.

Investment Tool #7
If you don't search for your own investment ideas - you need a good option to receive regular flow of research. Subscribe to the best independent research firms out there. (I use The Oxford Club, EquityMaster, Personalfn, KirkReport and Weber Global Opportunities).

Retweet Loading mentions

Comments [0]

Deal Maker CRM for Deal Flow - Highrise

It's all about the network. The value of the network increases disproportionately to the size.

If you did a survey, you'd be surprized at how many high-touch professional services firms (PSFs) such as private equity, venture capital and investment banks actually track their deal flow. That's primarily because the deal team are too busy working on finding deals, post acquisition monitoring and growing their portfolio companies, to update a deal register or any crm software for that matter.

However, if there is a solution that will reduce the amount of time needed to enter the data points and access them - then you stand a chance of getting them to use the solution. As a deal maker, if I don't see immediate value for the time and effort spent, I'd certainly not waste any more precious time on it.

Another issue, is probably the lack of a formalized sales process to actually force someone to use the CRM package.

However, if you've ever had the chance to understand first-hand the importance of knowledge management - you'll definitely want to put in place a system where deal makers are encouraged to share information.

I found a solution that probably meets all the essentials - Highrise. I'm currently using this for tracking the deal flow in AVCION and highly recommend it. Not only have I been more efficient, but I'm really on top of things now. Wouldn't you like to be switched on always!

banner-300x250.png 

   
Click here to download:
Deal_Maker_CRM_for_Deal_Flow_-.zip (137 KB)

Retweet Loading mentions
Filed under  //   avcion   banking   business   crm   deal flow   deal maker   highrise   private equity   system   venture capital  

Comments [2]

Jason Fried Speaks - 37Signals

Retweet Loading mentions

Comments [0]