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  • Millions of Dollars Offered for Information on the Death of Barry and Honey Sherman

    Millions of Dollars Offered for Information on the Death of Barry and Honey Sherman

    Canadian lawyer Brian Greenspan just put C$10 million on the line for information regarding who may have killed Barry and Honey Sherman. The billionaire and his wife were found dead last December in their Toronto home. The event has been mired in controversy since day one. Toronto police initially decided that the event was a murder-suicide, but that has since changed.

    Brian Greenspan is working on behalf of Barry Sherman’s family, who have been critical of the Toronto police. They feel as though there have been lapses in judgment, and that Barry and Honey Sherman were murdered.

    The lawyer told media:

    “We’re trying to light the fire… To provide new incentive for the members of the public to come forward with information but also to light the fire under the Toronto police service.”

    Barry and Honey Sharman’s family is also hoping that the Toronto police department will share information with their team of private investigators. Private investigators were influential in determining that the crime wasn’t a murder-suicide, and shifting the focus of the investigation away from the Barry Sherman.

    Barry and Honey Sherman Were Probably Murdered

    At the time that he was apparently murdered, Barry Sherman was the 15th richest person in Canada. There is a lot of uncertainty surrounding his death, and he freely admitted he could be the target of an attempt on his life.

    Barry Sherman made his billions with Apotex, a generic drug maker that he founded in the 1970s. Barry Sherman was unpopular with rivals, and famously wrote in his 2001 book, Prescription Games:

    “The thought once came to my mind, why didn’t they just hire someone to knock me off? For a thousand bucks paid to the right person you can probably get someone killed. Perhaps I’m surprised that hasn’t happened.”

    Whether or not Barry and Honey Sherman were killed by bad actors on the behalf of major drug companies is anyone’s guess. Barry Sherman was also connected to the Clinton Foundation, which gave rise to some interesting theories from the tin-foil hat community.

    According to media reports from the time of the murder, Honey Sherman struggled with whoever killed her. The Toronto police initially pointed to the fact that there were no signs of forced entry into the couple’s C$7 million dollar home, where they were found in a basement pool area, hanging from belts near a stairway.

    The Legal Drug Game

    Barry Sherman was a master at producing valuable generic drugs and avoiding legal problems from the major drug companies. Apotex grew to be the largest generic drug manufacturer in Canada, which probably cost other drug manufacturers tens of billions of dollars over the decades.

    Major drug manufacturers like Pfizer or Bristol Myers Squibb stand to lose tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars when their drug patents lapse. In some ways, drug patent law is hazy, and the big manufacturers are always looking for ways to extend their rights over chemicals, to ensure ongoing revenue.

    Barry and Honey Sherman could have been victims of big pharma’s greed, but until more evidence comes to light, it’s impossible to know for sure.

    Featured image from The Globe and Mail.

  • Leicester City Owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha Confirmed Dead in Helicopter Crash

    Leicester City Owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha Confirmed Dead in Helicopter Crash

    It has now been confirmed that Leicester City owner Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was one of the five who died in the tragic helicopter crash outside the club’s stadium on Saturday night.

    As news swept across the internet late on Saturday evening and early Sunday morning that the Thai billionaire’s helicopter had crashed just meters from the stadium, the football world held their collective breaths. It seems that everyone’s worst fears were true.

    Tragic Death of Thai King Power Billionaire

    Known for his acts of generosity towards Leicester City fans and his philanthropy in his beloved home nation of Thailand, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha was more than just the billionaire owner of the King Power empire.

    The outpouring of grief across the UK and especially the tributes outside Leicester City’s ‘King Power’ Stadium show how much the club’s owner meant to the people of Leicester.

    If you’re a football fan, nobody will ever forget the groundbreaking achievement of Leicester City winning the English Premier League in 2016 against the 5,000 to 1 odds. It’s one of the most unlikely rags-to-riches success stories in sports history.

    Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha took over the club in 2010 and immediately eradicated the club’s $130 million debt. He steadied the ship at Leicester and helped the club achieve unbridled success.

    Srivaddhanaprabha was worth a reported $4.9 billion, which he made from his King Power empire of duty-free shops.

    Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha Confirmed Dead

    Over the duration of Saturday evening and most of Sunday, it was still unconfirmed whether Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha had died, although it had been confirmed by sources close to his family that he was one of the five people on board the helicopter.

    As reported by staff at Leicester City football club, they had seen Srivaddhanaprabha get on board his helicopter as usual in the middle of the pitch just 45-minutes after the club played to a 1-1 draw against West Ham United on Saturday evening.

    The helicopter was bound for Luton Airport where the Thai billionaire was to board a private jet back to Bangkok. Unfortunately, the Leicester City CEO never made it.

    Eyewitness reports say that a grinding noise was coming from the helicopter as it left the stadium above the car park. It apparently dropped like a stone and burst into flames just meters from the stadium.

    Leicester City released a statement late on Sunday confirming their beloved boss’ death:

    “It is with the deepest regret and a collective broken heart that we confirm our chairman, Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha, was among those to have tragically lost their lives on Saturday evening when a helicopter carrying him and four other people crashed outside King Power Stadium. None of the five people on-board survived.”

    The four other people who were on board with Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha were Nursara Suknamai, Punpare, pilot Eric Swaffer, and a passenger named Izabela Roza Lechowicz.

    Featured image from Goal.com.

  • European Markets Start Steady Despite Late Asia Selloffs

    European Markets Start Steady Despite Late Asia Selloffs

    Despite the catastrophic month in China with late selloffs on Monday taking the CSI 300 to new lows, European markets remained calm this morning. Italian stocks and bonds even rallied as S&P’s credit rating kept them above junk status.

    Despite the Chinese renminbi at a near-10-year low, sliding oil prices, and China’s late sell-off, European stocks began trading healthily this Monday morning.

    The London FTSE 100 gained 0.5% and Frankfurt’s Xetra Dax 30 gained 0.6% after a dismal week last for most markets led by tech selloffs and disappointing Q3 growth reports from Amazon.

    Angela Merkel Steps Down and Italian Bonds Rally

    The euro dropped by 0.2% against the dollar as Angela Merkel steps down as the leader of Germany’s governing CDU party. Although she will stay on as chancellor in the interim, she will not be standing for another term.

    It was a good start to the day for Italy, as Italian bonds rallied and drove down their yields after the S&P Global kept the country’s credit rating a full two notches above junk status on Friday.

    Ahead of the UK Budget announcement later today, the pound remained unaltered. Despite “business as usual,” the mood in European markets remains cautious in the wake of Europe’s uncertain political future and fears over a global economic slowdown.

    Signs of Hope from Asia

    Despite China’s slowing growth and waning stock markets, other Asian markets performed well, showing signs of hope coming out of Asia.

    Japan’s Topix fell by 0.4% briefly after climbing by as much as 1.1%. And in Hong Kong, the Hang Seng rose by 0.1% overall after strong earnings news from HSBC, whose shares rose by 4.55% on the back of a Q3 report that beat all estimates.

    HSBC Stock
    HSBC Stock / Hang Seng

    Australia’s S&P/ASX also rose 1.2% and the healthcare sector performed particularly well as shares rose by 2.4%.

    Early US futures looked to an uncertain open, with the S&P 500 expected to slide to 0.1% and the Nasdaq Composite predicted to rise 0.2%.

    Featured image from Shutterstock.

  • 2 Lucky Winners Scoop a Share of the $687.8 Million Powerball Jackpot

    2 Lucky Winners Scoop a Share of the $687.8 Million Powerball Jackpot

    Imagine waking up on Sunday morning to find out that you’re over $300 million richer! That’s what happened to two lucky winners of Saturday night’s $687.8 million Powerball jackpot.

    Some people are born lucky while others not so much. Saturday night’s $687.8 million Powerball jackpot was the third-largest prize in the history of the game. Some people are saying that they would not like to be the ones paying the tax bill on the prize. However, that sounds like a rich person’s problem to us.

    21 Weeks Without Powerball Jackpot

    It had been 21 weeks with no Powerball jackpot winners but, ironically enough, two tickets scooped the jackpot prize on Saturday night. The winning numbers were 8, 12, 13, 19 and 27, with a Powerball of 4.

    Let’s put this into perspective by saying that a chance of winning the jackpot was 1 in 292 million, which takes the phrase “1 in a million” to new heights.

    One of the winning tickets was purchased in New York while the second one was picked up in Iowa. But of course, after tax, the winnings will be significantly less than $343 million apiece. The feds will automatically withhold 24% of the winnings for tax purposes.

    They can choose whether to take their winnings as a lump sum or on a yearly basis spread out over 30-years. Either way, the feds, and the state will take their share in taxes as usual.

    Big Week for American Lotteries

    The news of Saturday’s Powerball jackpot windfall put the final touches on a big week for the American lottery industry. Only last Tuesday, a single ticket won the $1.537 billion Mega Millions jackpot, which vastly dwarfs Saturday’s prize, which was close to becoming the highest jackpot prize in US history.

    The odds for winning the Mega Millions jackpot last week were 302.5 to 1, as the last person to win the prize was way back on July 24. Initial reports believed that last week’s Mega Millions prize was going to become the richest pot in US history but it just missed out.

    The largest lottery jackpot ever was back in 2016 when the Powerball Lottery reached a stunning $1.58 billion, and although last weeks’ came close to setting a new record, is anyone arguing over a $20 million deficit? Not the winning ticket holders, that’s for sure.

    Featured image from Shutterstock.

  • IBM to Acquire Computer Software Company Red Hat for $34 Billion

    IBM to Acquire Computer Software Company Red Hat for $34 Billion

    IBM Corp. announced on Sunday that it would be acquiring US software company Red Hat Inc. in a deal worth $34 billion. While IBM is no stranger to acquisitions, this will be the largest for the company so far, as it looks to leverage Red Hat’s specialist hardware technology knowledge and consulting business for higher profit margins.

    This latest acquisition also demonstrates IBM CEO Ginni Rometty’s focus on expanding into subscription-based offerings in the face of slowing growth from its own software sales and declining demand for mainframe servers.

    IBM currently has a market cap of $114 billion and will pay $190 per share in cash for Red Hat, which is a 63% premium on Friday’s closing share price at $116.68.

    red hat shares
    Red Hat shares on Friday.

    About Red Hat Inc.

    A pioneer in opensource technology, Red Hat Inc. was founded in 1993 and specializes in Linux operating systems, still the most popular open-source software today as an alternative to Microsoft Windows.

    Red Hat works on a subscription model and charges fees to its corporate customers for technical support, maintenance, and certain custom features.

    In a choppy environment up in the clouds, Red Hat is one of a small few groups of cloud computing companies that have both free cash flow and revenue growth. In an interview with Reuters, IBM CEO Rometty said:

    “This acquisition we are clearly doing for growth synergies. This is not about cost synergies at all.”

    This type of acquisition makes sense for older technology companies like IBM in a bid to gain scale, as the main competitors in the space begin to gobble up market share.

    While the company has a lot of ground to catch up on, IBM is hoping to compete on the same scale with the likes of Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet.

    For context, IBM has lost nearly one-third of their share value in the last five years, while Red Hat has gained some 170% in the same period.

    red hat 5 years
    Red Hat shares over last 5 years
    IBM 5 years
    IBM shares over the last 5 years

    About IBM

    IBM has been around for over a century, founded in 1911. Known in the industry as Big Blue due to its hallmark blue computers, the company has been facing dwindling profits for years and is transitioning from a legacy computer maker to a player in the emerging technologies space.

    Some of these recent initiatives from IBM have been AI-powered IBM Watson and the IBM Hyperledger blockchain.

    Other long-standing tech companies are also looking to compete in a new era through acquisitions, as showcased in Microsoft’s acquiring of Github this year and Adobe Inc acquiring Marketo.

    If all goes according to plan, the deal with Red Hat will close in the second half of next year.

    Featured image from Shutterstock.

  • Apple Investigates Illegal Teen Labor Accusation at Watch Plant

    Apple Investigates Illegal Teen Labor Accusation at Watch Plant

    Forget about bendy phones and 5G, the latest hiccup on the horizon for tech giant Apple is an illegal teen labor case. The company has launched its own investigation after getting clobbered by a complaint from Hong Kong-based human rights group, Sacom.

    Apparently, one of Apple’s suppliers in Taiwan, Quanta Computer, has been employing students illegally to assemble parts for Apple Watches in a Chongqing factory in mainland China.

    Sacom said they had interviewed some 28 high school students at the Quanta Computer factory during the summer. The students reported being sent over to the factory by their teachers to take up internship positions. However, their duties were the same as full-time assembly line workers.

    All of the students interviewed said that they were forced to work night shifts and overtime, which is illegal for student internships under Chinese law.

    A further 11 of the students said that they would not be able to graduate from high school if they did not complete the internship. One student was quoted by Sacom as saying:

    “We are scheduled to work at night, from 8pm to 8am. Only one day off is allowed per week.”

    Questions About How Apple Manages Its Supply Chain

    Tim Cook may have been vocal over protecting user data, but what about protecting its workers throughout the supply chain? Using young students as robots and forcing them to work 12-hour night shifts is hardly a solid foundation for Apple’s high principles.

    Apple is known as one of the better companies when it comes to supply-chain management, publishing a yearly list of suppliers to highlight its seriousness over monitoring its overseas partners. But that doesn’t seem to be enough.

    Just last year, labor violations were uncovered in the supply chain for Apple’s iPhone (also made in China) at the Foxconn Zhengzhou factory. Both Foxconn and Apple admitted that students had worked overtime against Chinese labor law–and also stated that they would put an end to using student interns to work long hours.

    In response to Sacom’s allegations over the Quanta factory, a spokesperson for Apple said:

    “We are urgently investigating the report that student interns added in September are working overtime and night shifts. We have zero tolerance for failure to comply with our standards and we ensure swift action and appropriate remediation.”

    Rising Costs Often Equals More Teen Labor

    As reports of an economic slowdown in China, the trade war with the US and rising tariffs, companies’ profit margins are continually squeezed. This often sees a spike in cases of child labor in China’s factories.

    Some activists even report that local governments encourage schools to supply factories with teen labor to attract investment to their area.

    Moreover, in October when Apple tends to announce its newest products, the factories see a surge in demand for labor that they cannot fill by hiring temporary employees under Chinese law, which leads to a rise in illegal internships.

    Featured image by Shutterstock.

  • From a Thousand Euros to Over 100 Million – An Interview with Damian Merlak Co-Founder of Bitstamp

    From a Thousand Euros to Over 100 Million – An Interview with Damian Merlak Co-Founder of Bitstamp

    Young people often dream about how to get rich quick. But according to 31-year-old Slovenian millionaire Damian Merlak, there is no shortcut, and:

    “Sometimes you also need luck.”

    Merlak is a co-founder of Bitstamp Exchange, Tokens.net (crypto-to-crypto exchange), and Quantum Project. He’s also in the 37th place on the rankings of the most influential Slovenians and the country’s youngest millionaire.

    Seven years ago Damian Merlak bought his first bitcoins, for about two dollars each. He doesn’t have those bitcoins today anymore.

    “Practically nobody who bought bitcoins for a couple of dollars each hasn’t kept them until today. Perhaps only someone who forgot he owns them.”

    With those words, the myth of millionaires who spent a few hundred dollars for the initial purchase of bitcoins was broken down. The first stop on the road to his own fortune was mining bitcoins.

    More than seven years ago, he entered a specialized shop in Kranj, Slovenia and ordered the two newest, most powerful graphics cards, which he wanted to connect with the slowest processor and worst memory card (RAM).

    All the PC specialists were confused: “What are you going to do with such a computer?” asked Nejc Kodrič the owner of the mentioned shop, and was quickly infected by Merlak’s enthusiasm over bitcoins.

    In 2011, they were hanging out and debating about the crypto world which soon turned into business cooperation when they founded the Bitstamp exchange.

    They received $10 million in startup funding to develop their idea. At that time there was Mt. Gox, a Japanese exchange platform, which offered a poor user experience. Getting money to Mt. Gox and getting it out was very difficult, as well as completing orders for sales and purchases.

    The user platform was dull and useful only for technically trained people. According to publicly available data, they calculated that Mt. Gox was earning $10,000 a day from commissions.

    “We calculated that if we’re as bad as they are, we can earn $10,000 a day.”

    In the meantime, many exchange platforms including Mt. Gox did not integrate well and did not succeed, but Bitstamp remains one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world.

    It has its headquarters in Luxembourg and offices in New York, London, and Slovenia, where its center of development also is. More than 100 people are employed at Bitstamp, while Merlak and Kodrič, each of them with more than $100 million dollars of assets land in the group of most rich and influential Slovenians.

    From Crypto Startups to Farms

    Damian Merlak considers himself to be a serial entrepreneur. And in order to pursue all of his business ambitions, he resigned from the executive position in Bitstamp, but he remains a 32% owner and member of the Supervisory Board.

    He got into some of his projects through the issuance of crypto coins (ICOs – initial coin offerings). The Quantum Project based on this idea, which offers trading strategies, collected him $4.12 million.

    With the Tokens.net project, which is a crypto-to-crypto exchange, he raised an amount of $15 million through an ICO. In addition to crypto enterprises, Merlak also focuses on more tangible things: he owns a farm which has 1,100 living animals. He also owns a veterinary clinic and a retail store with textile products, as well as several real estate properties.

    Let’s dive deeper into the man behind Bitstamp and find out how he got to where he is today.

    Can you give us a quick introduction to your background? How did you get where you are today and what does your company do?

    A colleague with whom we worked on projects told me about bitcoin in 2011. When I checked the subject on the Internet, I first said that I was not interested. At that time the price was about two dollars. Two months later, I accidentally caught the price of it between 15 and 20 dollars. This difference aroused the interest in me.

    Then bitcoin fell again and I started buying. I was also interested in technology and the system that runs the background. I started to participate in the forums. First I was only buying bitcoins, then I saw an opportunity in mining them.

    I went to a classmate and ordered graphics cards and everything that was needed to mine bitcoins. The thing started to interest him, but his brother, Nejc Kodrič was blown away too and soon started to explore the topic, and within some time we together formed the idea of Bitstamp.

    At the moment, there is a large assortment of crypto exchanges around the world, and Bitstamp is one of the largest and it is the only licensed company in Luxembourg. On our exchange, not only individuals but also institutional clients can buy and sell crypto coins. A fund or an investment bank can’t operate in an unregulated entity or with a “Monkey Business,” as I call it.

    Bitstamp maintains the strategy of the fiat to crypto exchange and vice versa. We have a large array of new virtual currencies and projects that are funded through ICOs. I think that these supporters need to provide adequate infrastructure, so I decided to establish Tokens.net. The exchange platforms are complementary to the activity and services they offer.

    When did you make your first million? Can you remember the first thing you bought?

    It was in 2013, I was 27 years old. When I earned the first million I bought a car – a Tesla model S. I invested the rest in my business.

    Did your life change when you become a millionaire? How so? Have you gotten many new “friends”?

    Not really, I might have lost some. I do not think the money changed me. I think the information and insight into the system at first hand have changed me. Now I know a lot of things that I didn’t know before, that’s why I respond differently to things that are happening around me.

    Probably your friends, acquaintances, and colleagues ask you how to make quick earnings. What do you answer them?

    I avoid giving financial advice. You don’t gain anything from it, just a problem when the market reverses, and people only really like the green numbers. Do you know how much more a 10% loss hurts compared to the sweetness given to you from a really good 10% profit?

    Would you say that investing in crypto is like gambling?

    Of course, there are risks. I advise people who invest, to learn about the technology itself, what it offers and what its weaknesses are. Many will burn, many have already. I also suggest that people invest in the largest, credible coins and don’t seek quick benefits in various schemes that someone sells door-to-door. The most important thing is to invest when the value is low and not when it reaches its all-time high.

    It is the same as Stocks of Tesla, Twitter, Snapchat and various. The average daily volatility of bitcoin is mostly 3% (let’s leave aside the crypto-bubble, which was created in December of the previous year). That can be compared with many technological stocks on the US stock exchange market NASDAQ. Investing in tokens (ICOs) is actually investing in startups. Profits can be huge, but the successes will be rare.

    Have you been lucky entering the crypto world?

    Seven years ago, I was firmly convinced, and that is why I also invested all my thousand euros of savings in bitcoin. If only then I had more savings… [ laughter].

    Many crypto millionaires are moving their crypto-money to real estate – from virtual to physical, including yourself. Why is this a good idea?

    Simply, the fortune has to be dispersed. The majority of my properties are linked to the success of the cryptocurrencies, and it makes sense to bring some of it to a bigger range and some other fields.

    Where else do you have your money invested?

    Shares and stocks of US companies, real estate for tourism, private companies with good cash flow. I have a farm with 1,100 living animals. I plan to build a boutique hotel. Due to great growth, my shares make me apprehensive so I protect them by buying options.

    What made you decide to buy shares?

    I have been trading with traditional shares for more than 10 years. That brought me to the world of cryptocurrencies. In recent years, I have been doing this with a distance, mainly because of staying in touch with cryptocurrencies.

    I use the options because it is much easier to limit the risk with them, and they also allow earnings in the form of a premium on possible sales in short periods of time.

    Changes in the crypto world are very fast. Do you get any sleep at all?

    Otherwise, it would not be fun! We’ll deal with boring business in 20 years.

    Where do you live and what does your workday look like?

    I live and work from home, from my small house in Malta. I decided to cooperate with Maltese local financial companies and the country of Malta in new projects because it regulates and is open to the possibility of licensing and dealing with cryptocurrencies.

    Moreover, winter is not really my favorite season, and the Maltese climate was only an additional advantage in deciding.

    You have enough to retire, why don’t you do that?

    I’m already somewhere warm, and I think I’ll never really retire. I love doing the things I do and living the way I live and I can’t imagine what my retirement will look like.

    What do your parents say about your success?

    They are proud.

    Did your parents help you financially with your entrepreneurial ventures?

    No. My fortune in life is that I come from a rather modest family, so I had to create everything by myself, which made me value my work even more. People who are born with everything tend to achieve less.

    What advice do you have for people just starting out with a business or trying to make their fortunes?

    It is necessary to perceive what is happening around you. If you are passive, things will pass you by. You have to be up-to-date with international flows and understand them. Expand your view. You have to set up a big, realistic and with a little luck accessible goal. Try to work with companies from industries and activities of your own interests, connect with them when you’re educating yourself.

    If you create wealth slowly, you have a completely different perception of it. If you hit the lotto overnight, wealth can be a problem. But if you build a company and you don’t earn anything in the first year, you might start paying your salary in the second one. The third year you might reach some higher growth and start paying your salary, as you always wanted.

    This is the organic growth, personal growth, that makes you understand money. After six years, Nejc and I agreed to have reached that point. Today I have a healthy attitude towards money, which makes me have less true friends than I used to have years ago.

    Featured image from Instagram •Damian Merlak (@damianmerlak).

  • Meet the Top 10 Highest-Paid CEOs of US Public Companies

    Meet the Top 10 Highest-Paid CEOs of US Public Companies

    This year brought in a new rule for public companies. Now they have to add in their proxy statements how much more CEOs and top management make than the typical employee. The result? The average salary of CEOs is $11.7 million—or 164 times the median pay of their employees.

    But it doesn’t stop there. The highest-paid CEOs take home a lot more, and $11 million doesn’t even cover their bonuses.

    We dug into the highest compensations of CEOs in 2017 from US public companies and how their revenues compared to those of median workers in the same firms. In reverse order based on how fat their paycheck is, here are the top 10 highest paid CEOs of US public companies.

    10. Jeffrey L. Bewkes – Time Warner

    Jeff_Bewkes_2012_ShankboneJeffrey Bewkes, CEO of Time Warner, took home $48.9 million in pay last year thanks to a $14.7-million bonus generated by the company’s financial performance the year before.

    On top of his $2-million salary, the Time Warner CEO received further compensations of $7.75 million in stock awards and $7.98 million in option awards.

    While Bewkes saw a 50% increase in revenue, we can’t say the same about the rest of Time Warner employees. The average salary in the company starts at $11.22 per hour for a retail sales associate and goes as high as $43.32 per hour for a business analyst.

    9. Ronald F. Clarke – Fleetcor Technologies

    ron-clarke0803212final_750xx1629-2168-582-3872017 was a good year for Ronald Clarke, CEO of Fleetcor Technologies.

    He went home with $52.6 million: $1 million as salary, $1.1 million as a bonus, $35.3 million in stock options, and a further $15 million in stock.

    The performance of this CEO must have been impressive since his compensation was 1,517 times higher than the median employee at Fleetcor Technologies.

    In the past eight years, Ronald Clarke has received benefits of over $350 million from his position as CEO at the company.

    8. Douglas S. Ingram – Sarepta Therapeutics

    Douglas S. Ingram LinkedInDouglas Ingram made $56.8 million as President and CEO of Sarepta Therapeutics last year. Pretty impressive, considering the entrepreneur came on board in June of 2017, meaning that sum was for a six-month period.

    The CEO’s salary was just $337,500. But, he got $11.6 million in stock awards and other $44.84 million in options–money that he’ll get after a five-year period if the stock goes from $34.65 to about $186.5. His compensation also included a bonus of $420,875.

    To be fair, average employees get bonuses as well, but not as high as their CEO’s. A biologist can pick up $513 a year, while a process development associate might rack up a bonus of $5,000 according to Glassdoor. The average salary for jobs at Sarepta is $67,570.

    7. Douglas R. Lebda – LendingTree

    Douglas R. Lebda LinkedInDouglas Lebda, founder, CEO, and President of LendingTree made $59.5 million last year, a 3,157% increase in total compensation from 2016. Lebda’s base salary was $639,231, and the largest amount represented “initial retention awards” meant to compensate for the last four years.

    On top of this, Lebda took home some $9.1 million in stock options, and he still owns shares worth over $101.8 million.

    Comparing this CEO’s revenue with what his employees make, Lebda takes home 549 times the paycheck of a median worker from his company at around $108,536. Only 44% of people think that LendingTree pays fair salaries.

    6. W. Nicholas Howley – TransDigm Group

    W-Nicholas-Howley LuxaticIn 2017, Nicholas Howley received compensations of $61 million as the CEO of TransDigm Group, a company that produces aircraft components. Most of the money, $51.2 million, came in the form of the stock options he holds, which are similar to earning dividends. The base salary of this CEO was just $7,000.

    The compensation, three times higher than the year before, doesn’t match Howley’s performance. The company’s shares underperformed on the broader S&P 500 index for the first time in a decade, according to MarketScreener.

    TransDigm Group takes good care of its employees, however. Top management salaries start at $162,000 for Vice Chairman Robert Henderson and go as high as $1.4 million for President and COO Kevin Stein.

    The average compensation inside the company is $145,545, while the median compensation reaches $103,797, the equivalent of $49 per hour.

    5. Leslie Moonves – CBS Corporation

    Les_Moonves_at_the_2009_Tribeca_Film_FestivalLeslie Moonves went home with $69.3 million from his position as CEO of CBS Corporation in 2017–of which $20 million came in the form of a bonus. From 2006, the total compensation he’s received from the company reached $600 million.

    The money doesn’t guarantee integrity, though. Moonves resigned in September 2018, due to multiple accusations of sexual misconduct.

    Not everybody who works at CBS Corp receives such impressive bonuses, either. Outside top management, average salaries start from $33,860 a year for an editor and go up to $117,000 a year for a sales manager.

    4. Mario J. Gabelli – Gamco Investors

    mario gabelli, ForbesIn 2017, Mario Gabelli received $69.4 million in compensation from his mutual fund and investment firm, Gamco Investors–almost $15 million less than the CEO took home the previous years.

    According to Forbes, the stock investor and financial analyst was Wall Street’s highest paid chief executive in 2013, when he received compensation of $85 million.

    Not that much, when you consider that Gabelli is a billionaire, with a net worth estimated at $1.6 billion. But quite a lot, if you look at the amount his employees take home a year.

    According to Glassdoor, an intern gets $15 per hour, while a research analyst gets $145,000 a year and an employee in a VP position makes around $285,000 a year.

    3. Michael Rapino – Live Nation

    rapino-michael-01-2015 Ad WeekNumber three in the top of the highest-paid CEOs of US public companies lits is Michael Rapino of Live Nation, who made $70 million last year. The most substantial part of his compensation, $58.6 million was in stocks.

    Rapino’s salary was just $2.4 million, with a rather nice bonus of $1 million (probably for the 24% increase in revenue the company registered last year).

    Live Nation was generous with all top management, however, providing total compensations of $108.3 million.

    President Joe Berchtold took home $28.7 million, CFO Kathy Willard got almost $5.5 million, while the General Counsel Michael Rowles received $3.3 million.

    As for the rest of the employees? The average salary is close to $74,000 a year, going from $20,800 for parking attendant positions to $213,000 for the position of VP of Finance.

    2. Frank J. Bisignano – First Data

    Frank J. Bisignano First DataFrank Bisignano is the Chairman and CEO of First Data, the most important player in the payments industry, with revenues of $11.6 billion in 2016.

    According to the statements filed for the past fiscal year, the First Data CEO received $1.3 million as a salary, a bonus of almost $600,000, and a little more than $450,000 in other types of compensation. The rest was awarded as stock, for a total of $102 million.

    First Data is a top employer, also making the number one company on the Military Times annual “Best for Vets: Employers” 2018. The average salary in this company is $70,000, and the average bonus is $2,700–220 times lower than the sum their CEO got last year!

    1. Hock E. Tan – Broadcom

    rsz_hock_tan_1 MIT NewsHock Tan’s salary in 2017 was $103 million, of which $4.8 million was the total annual cash compensation. The lion’s share of the $98.3 million came as restricted stock awards–that he receives if the stock hits specific performance targets.

    Hock E. Tan is President, CEO, and Director of Broadcom, a leading company in the communications industry. The firm provides digital and analog semiconductor connectivity solutions.

    It’s not only the CEO who’s satisfied with his salary. 74% of Broadcom employees believe they’re fairly paid. The average salary in the company varies–with an average hourly pay between $12.25 per hour for team leader and $75 per hour for a software engineer position.

    Salaries start from $38,597 per year for a chemical technician and can reach as high as $163,501 per year for a senior principal.

    The Top 10 Highest-Paid CEOs of US Public Companies

    Even leading management has to deal with wage disparities–as you can see, number one on the list of highest-paid CEOs makes twice as much as number 10.

    Also, keep in mind that most CEOs get impressive bonuses and high compensations in stock awards for reaching specific business goals.

    But even so, it’s pretty hard to justify the fact that most CEOs’ compensation is between 400 and 1,517 times higher than their employees.

    Image Credits

  • Is Pop Sensation Justin Bieber Ready to Retire at Age 24?

    Is Pop Sensation Justin Bieber Ready to Retire at Age 24?

    Love him or hate him (or just listen to his music in secret), you have to admit, 24-year-old Justin Bieber has done pretty well for himself. With a net worth hovering around $225 million, he’s certainly stored up a nice nest egg if he wants to retire early and live off the royalties from his tunes.

    And that’s exactly what he’s doing if sources speaking to People magazine are to be believed. Apparently, the love-struck singer who tied the knot last month to model Hailey Baldwin is dedicating all his time to his marriage instead of his career. What could possibly go wrong with that?

    Justin Bieber Got Married Against Many People’s Advice

    When you’re young, handsome, and stinking rich, you can pretty much do anything you want. And if that means disappointing fans and staying in to binge-watch Netflix with your supermodel wife, so much the better. His manager’s probably not over the moon, though. And neither, it seems, is his newlywed bride.

    People magazine reported that a source close to the Canadian millionaire said that Hailey was ready to go back to work but Justin wanted to enjoy married bliss a little longer… Except that they’re already fighting about it. The source said:

    “They are not on the same page when it comes to work.”

    As the new face of Tommy Hilfiger, wife Hailey at 21 is understandably ambitious and not ready to become a housewife just yet. She was also recently named Adidas and JD’s Style Creator and worked with a 90s-inspired fashion show last month in London.

    So while the singer procrastinates over his music and enjoys some time out, his entourage will have to wait. Maybe for a long time.

    A Well-Deserved Break

    Starting out as a teenage sensation, Bieber has been producing hit records since 2009, racking up more than 200 awards, appearing in a bunch of movies, and recording several albums, as well as being constantly on tour during a time when most teenagers and young adults are either studying for college or pretending to be studying for college.

    It seems that Justin had a lot of responsibility to deal with for a long time. And well, if you had $225 million in the bank, a hot model for a wife, and a subscription to Netflix maybe you’d retire at 24 too.

    Featured image by Wikipedia.

  • Did Elon Musk Commit Securities Fraud with Tesla Q3 Earnings?

    Did Elon Musk Commit Securities Fraud with Tesla Q3 Earnings?

    During the Tesla Q3 earnings Q&A webinar, Elon Musk was questioned on the gross margin for the Model 3 by Pierre Ferragu of New Street Research. Other “analysts” on the call included Adam Jonas of Morgan Stanley, Dan Galves of Wolfe Research, and CNBC’s Phil LeBeau. The analyst from Morgan Stanley started his questioning with a dig at CEO, Musk.

    “… as the company conducts its search for a new Chairman, what are the attributes, experiences of that person that you think would be a best shared or best value for Tesla?”

    Musk, noticeably offended, pushed him for an alternative question on operational matters. Many analysts were wide of the mark with their forecasts for Tesla Q3 earnings. The median forecast was another loss-making quarter for Tesla Motors. During the one hour webinar, several questions came up on the better-than-expected gross margin. Analysts were trying to justify their inept forecasting.

    Chief Financial Officer, Deepak Ahuja, in an earlier earnings call had stated profitability would come from their improved gross margins on the Model 3. It was widely known that the revenue mix swung significantly from the Model S and X to the Model 3 in the quarter.

    This was reinforced in the Model 3 teardown conducted by Sandy Munro of Munro & Associates. Previously, Munro had criticized the build quality of the vehicle, but his final analysis was very different. Munro assessed the gross margin for the Model 3 at a staggering 30%. Well ahead of the “financial analysts” crunching their numbers.

    In June, Musk took to Twitter when news leaked that 9% of the workforce was to be offloaded. Some of these cost savings probably came through in Q3.

    Choose Your Analyst Carefully

    Market analysts, on the whole, got the Tesla Q3 earnings wrong. The internet is awash with opinions on the earnings with some asking if the numbers are accurate. One YouTube channel held their own Q&A session straight after the webinar. One viewer asked:

    “Is there any way that Tesla could have manipulated or event [sic] faked the numbers in their earnings call or is there some overseight [sic] from agencies?”

    The host pointed out it would mean jail time if the earnings were false and those involved are not that stupid. Interim results are not just provided for investors. Quarterly statements are required by the SEC, and indeed it would be very foolish to “cook” the books.

    However, accountancy is not an exact science. Errors do occur, and accounting principles can be “modified,” subject to auditors’ approval. When executives own a significant share of the company’s stock, they might be tempted to do an “Enron.”

    Small owner-occupied businesses tend to understate their earnings to reduce tax liabilities. Whereas larger corporations have done the opposite to boost the stock price.

    In my very early days as a junior accountant, I was told an interesting tale about one of the largest engineering companies in the world. For some unknown reason, one of their many subsidiaries wanted to show lower earnings for the current accounting period. This was achieved by loading up a fleet of trucks with finished goods on the day the auditors attended the annual stock count.

    Analyst Harris Kupperman Calls Tesla Q3 Earnings a Fraud

    When you read an analyst’s report decide for yourselves if they have a hidden agenda. Some are short selling the stock. Others have a grievance with the executives, and some are just poor analysts. Harris Kupperman scores highly on the latter. Kupperman’s blog site states:

    “I’ve been successfully investing in the markets for over two decades. In 2003 I started a hedge fund, Praetorian Capital, so that others could invest alongside me.”

    How he can be a successful trader with little or no understanding of financial statements is beyond me. Following the release of Tesla Q3 earnings, he published an article on his blog which was also covered by ZeroHedge. Part of the mission statement for ZeroHedge is:

    “to widen the scope of financial, economic and political information available to the professional investing public.”

    They are certainly widening the “scope” with Kupperman’s shoddy analysis. It’s abundantly clear that he hasn’t studied the published accounts for Tesla. Strangely, the full year accounts don’t seem to be available on Tesla’s website. The weighty 276-page report for the year ending December 2017 is widely available on other sites.

    Kupperman starts his review of the earnings figures with:

    “While I am certain that Tesla collapses in the near future, all evidence seems to show that they’ve used every trick from every financial fraud over the past 100 years to put lipstick on the Q3 financial results.”

    Why Kupperman Is Wrong

    Kupperman goes on to illustrate his lack of knowledge by proclaiming the earnings are false because depreciation per car in Q3 was almost half that of Q2. Kupperman’s cursory glance of the financial statements probably picked up the entry towards the top of page 78:

    “Depreciation for tooling is computed using the units-of-production method whereby capitalized costs are amortized over the total estimated productive life of the respective assets. As of December 31, 2017, the estimated productive life for Model S and X tooling was 250,000 vehicles based on our current estimates of production. As of December 31, 2017, the estimated productive life for Model 3 tooling was 1,000,000 vehicles based on our current estimates of production.”

    I have reproduced the calculations done by Kupperman but for clarity switched to $m rather than $000, except for the depreciation per car.

    Tesla Q3 earnings report fact or fiction

    Two glaring mistakes by the analyst. Firstly, the mix of vehicles changed dramatically from Model S and X to Model 3. The Model 3 being depreciated over 1 million vehicles compared with just 250,000 vehicles for the S and X. This would significantly reduce depreciation despite the doubling of the total number of cars sold.

    Tooling Costs

    Secondly, the original cost of tooling in December 2017 was just $1.3 billion. Whereas the total asset costs are close to $18 billion. Pages 89 and 90 of the financial reports show the historical costs for solar energy systems and property, plant and equipment. Some of these fixed assets are depreciated over decades, especially the big-ticket items. They are not written off based on cars produced in the quarter.

    The figures for depreciation picked up by Kupperman are the total for all assets depreciated and not just the $1.3 billion of tooling. The financial records do show a further $2.5 billion of assets in construction. Some of which ultimately will be depreciated as tooling. Also, further tooling costs from Q1 to Q2 would be depreciated in Q3. However, we don’t have a breakdown of these figures from the interim results. It is my opinion that Kupperman’s assertion that the Tesla Q3 earnings are fraudulent is without basis.

    Featured image Evening Standard.