CEOs On The Run

[rancar]

WorldCom last night announced dramatic accounting errors. This comes on heals of other shenanigans going on with other big Wall St companies. Following is something I picked up off a Yahoo bulletin board. It's done humorously and in jest. Wonder though how many people will be laughing in another year or two.
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CEOs on the Run
by: kingcpa2000
Long-Term Sentiment: Strong Buy 06/26/02 01:13 am
Msg: 24701 of 24809

REMAINING U.S. CEOs MAKE A BREAK FOR IT--
Band of Roving Chief Executives Spotted Miles from Mexican Border

San Antonio, Texas(Rooters) Unwilling to wait for their eventual indictments, the 10,000
remaining CEOs of public U.S. companies made a break for it yesterday, heading for the Mexican border, plundering towns and villages along the way, and writing the entire rampage off as a marketing expense.

"They came into my home, made me pay for my own TV, then double-booked the revenues," said Rachel Sanchez of Las Cruces, just north of El Paso. "Right in front of my daughters."

Calling themselves the CEOnistas, the chief executives were first spotted last night along the Rio Grande River near Quemado, where they bought each of the town's 320 residents by borrowing against pension fund gains. By
late this morning, the CEOnistas had arbitrarily inflated Quemado's population to 960, and declared a 200 percent profit for the fiscal second quarter.

This morning, the outlaws bought the city of Waco, transferred its underperforming areas to a private partnership, and sent a bill to California for $4.5 billion.

Law enforcement officials and disgruntled shareholders riding posse were noticeably frustrated.

"First of all, they're very hard to find because they always stand behind their numbers, and the numbers keep shifting," said posse spokesman Dean Levitt. "And every
time we yell 'Stop in the name of the shareholders!', they refer us to investor relations. I've been on the phone all
[censored] morning."

"YOU'LL NEVER AUDIT ME ALIVE!"

The pursuers said they have had some success, however, by preying on a common executive
weakness. "Last night we caught about 24 of them by disguising one of our female officers as a CNBC anchor," said U.S. Border Patrol spokesperson Janet Lewis. "It was like moths to a flame."

Also, teams of agents have been using high-powered listening devices to scan the plains for telltale sounds of the CEOnistas. "Most of the time we just hear leaves rustling or cattle flicking their tails," said Lewis, "but occasionally we'll pick up someone saying, 'I was totally out of the loop on that.'"

Among former and current CEOs apprehended with this method were Computer Associates' Sanjay Kumar, Adelphia's John Rigas, Enron's Ken Lay, Joseph Nacchio of Qwest, Joseph Berardino of Arthur Andersen, and every Global Crossing CEO since 1997. ImClone Systems' Sam Waksal and
Dennis Kozlowski of Tyco were not allowed to join the CEOnistas as they have already been indicted.

So far, about 50 chief executives have been captured, including Martha Stewart, who was detained south of El Paso where she had cut through a barbed-wire fence at the Zaragosa border crossing off Highway 375.

"She would have gotten away, but she was stopping motorists to ask for marzipan and food coloring so she could make edible snowman
place settings, using the cut pieces of wire for the arms," said Border Patrol officer
Jennette Cushing. "We put her in cell No. 7, because the morning sun really adds
texture to the stucco walls."

While some stragglers are believed to have successfully crossed into Mexico, Cushing said the bulk of the CEOnistas have holed themselves up at the Alamo.

"No, not the fort, the car rental place at the airport," she said. "They're rotating all
the tires on the minivans and accounting for each change as a sale.

Found this news article in the LA Daily Times

 

[Mike_Dumond]

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[Hoosier_Daddy]

Yep, on the RUN........ With my 401K.

 

[wasabi]

That is a choice piece. Thanks for giving me something uplifting to chuckle about on this otherwise dire market morning. Watch your topknots!

 

[Frank_Mulligan]

Go to Yahoo Finance and check out how much these theives, uhh, I mean executives, steal, uhh, I mean make, in stock robberies, uhh, I mean options. But I'd suggest not doing it will you're eating.

I'm glad I keep paying into my 401k. That way it stays where it was 4 years ago!

 

[rancar]

Following may explain a little bit why these CEOs are on the run.

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From today's Daily Reckoning
by: yo_soy_eso 06/27/02 10:11 pm
Msg: 25574 of 25647

Another rush to the downside yesterday...with stocks
down more than 200 points early on.

But still no stampede. No panic. Instead, investors
worked prices back up and came close to breaking even
for the day.

"I believe in this market," say the characters on a
popular CNBC ad. Faith keeps them in stocks...holding on and hoping for a new bull phase. But investors don't get what they expect from a market - they get what they deserve.

What does a man who bought Worldcom at $62 deserve?

What does an executive who inflated earnings by $3.8
billion deserve? What do consumers who spent every penny that came their way...and then borrowed more...deserve? And what about an economy...where the most outrageous business practices were encouraged, all while lecturing the rest of the world about the superiority of the American free enterprise model - what does it deserve?

We don't know...but we have a feeling we will find out.

More and more, the great heroes of American business of the '90s are appearing, not on the adoring covers of
BusinessWeek, but in police line-ups. And day by day,
investors are beginning to wonder. Maybe the Great Boom of the late '90s wasn't all it was supposed to be.

Maybe the promise of new technology, productivity, and
long-term stock market profits aren't what they were
supposed to be either...

"Finally, all these accounting messes show what we have been saying all along," wrote Dave Skarica back in
January. "The bull market wasn't driven by fundamentals
or a so-called 'new era'. It was hype, a bubble. Everything was inflated, it was false hopes and dreams.
And now, finally, this is being exposed."

 

[rancar]

Xerox CEO may be next CEO on the run with the following just out this morning.

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Xerox Says Will Restate Earnings


Friday June 28, 7:57 AM EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Xerox Corp., the U.S. office equipment maker, said on Friday it would restate revenues over a five-year period by around $2.0 billion, but speculation of a much bigger hole in its books sent shares skidding.

Just days after U.S. telecoms carrier WorldCom stunned global markets by saying it had hidden nearly $4.0 billion in expenses, Xerox saw its shares plunge 31 percent in Europe.

"Xerox expects its revenues to be restated by around $2.0 billion over the five year period," spokeswoman Christa Carone told Reuters. Revenues over the five-year period originally amounted to $92.5 billion.

But she declined to comment on a Wall Street Journal report that the total amount of improperly recorded revenues over the five-year period of 1997 through 2001 could be more than $6.0 billion.



The figure is twice as much as the $3.0 billion improperly accounted for revenues in the four years between 1997 and 2000, that were estimated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in April when it settled a previous fraud case with Xerox.

Xerox, once part of the Nifty Fifty of most reliable U.S. companies, is soon expected to file restated sales and earnings for the 1997 to 2000 period following its April settlement with the SEC. The SEC also found it had improperly accounted for $1.5 billion of earnings over the four-year period.

"If not for these (improper) accounting actions, Xerox would have fallen short of market expectations, often by a wide margin, in almost every reporting period from 1997 through 1999," the SEC said in its complaint before settling for a $10 million penalty.

Xerox shares crashed 31 percent to $5.51 in pre-opening trade via the Instinet electronic brokerage system, down from a New York close of $8. Its 9.75 percent 2009 euro bond was trading at around 70 percent of face value at 1000 GMT, about 10 points lower on the day. "The signals this sort of story sends to the market are very bad and investors will react bearishly," said Tom Hougaard, market strategist at financial bookmakers City Index.

"The effect this will have on investors in the U.S. is important as they will start to ask (more) questions about corporate reliability," he added. Xerox's books are being pored over by accountants PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, which took over as the copier company's auditor last October after Xerox fired longtime auditor KPMG LLP.

Neither auditor was immediately available for comment.

The improper accounting by Xerox could mean the company had brought revenues forward. A restatement could mean that sales originally booked in one year should now be booked in another.

Xerox, which in recent years has struggled to restructure and reduce costs in the face of lower demand and fierce competition from Asia, became a household name in the late 1950s when it introduced the 914, the world's first xerographic copier, changed auditors in October.


©2002 Reuters Limited.

 

[MDNY]

I guess I find it out that the current Congress, Senate and the White House (Bush/Chenney) did not want any major account changes or new laws to govern after Enron (smells like corporate fund raising).

Now in the wake of Xerox, MCI, and countless others they are now talking about putting the CEO's in jail. What about the Billions of $$$ lost to pension funds and such. Who is watching out for our 401's and funds. You cannot trust the fund managers, the analysts, heck you can't trust the companies themselves to provide accurate info.

What we need is better enforcement of laws, better protection and (continued support ) for whilstle blowers.

In NY they have the cell phone law where you must have a hands free kit or speakerphone. Do you know how many people don't bother to get one. If you can afford the phone (and the BMW) you can afford a $35 headset. How about making it madatory to purchase the headset or hands free kit when you get a new phone. While this does not correct the millions of phones out there today, it starts to correct the problem. How about road blocks with random checks like they do for Drunks and registrations.

Good government, and better application of the laws is what we need. And oh yeah, Mrs. Skillings should have to fork over any money for the sales at her "antique store" to former Enron employees.

 

[rancar]

Mike...

<font color=blue>Now in the wake of Xerox, MCI, and countless others they are now talking about putting the CEO's in jail. What about the Billions of $$$ lost to pension funds and such. Who is watching out for our 401's and funds. You cannot trust the fund managers, the analysts, heck you can't trust the companies themselves to provide accurate info.</font color=blue>

Yep...you've got it right. Only one to watch out for your 401K is you. When everything looks like it's heading south, it pays to stand aside. No sense in stepping in front of a freight train as it's cascading down the hillside.

Caveat Emptor, my friend!!

Bob