Professor Elam

M ike Rowe on Four Year Degrees

1/31/2024.

Click here

 

Bold claim on four year degrees

San Antonio Institute Management Accountants Update

Tuesday Jan 30 2024

2024 has started off strong for your IMA chapter and the momentum continues beyond January!

First, if you are interested in joining the chapter board (in any size capacity) for the upcoming IMA fiscal year (beginning July 1), we are now assembling our volunteer leader ballot for a vote at the March meeting.  If you have as little as 1 hour per month, we can find you a role that plays to your strengths and schedule.  Please contact the chapter to express your interest:  [email protected]. 

Second, save the date - Saturday, March 23rd (in the morning) - for our 2nd ever Habitat for Humanity service project.  This is a joint project with the San Antonio CPA Society's Members in Business & Industry group.  We will also invite accounting students from area universities.  Breakfast tacos, coffee, OJ and water will be provided.  Details will be posted to the chapter home page in the next week, but for now add it to your calendar. 

Third, we have 3 fantastic February events.  You can register for each on the chapter home page: https://SanAntonio.IMAnet.org.

• Tuesday, Feb 20th (5-6:15pm CT) 100% Virtual - 1.5 hours of CPE.  Joint meeting with the Hartford CT and the Eastern CT chapters.  Board member Mike Lovelace, CMA, will present "How to Present Data Meaningfully and Accurately."
    
• Wednesday, Feb 21st (5:30-8pm CT) Hybrid - 2.0 hours of CPE.  "Lease Accounting Compliance - What's Involved?" and "Using DISC Personality Tools to Enhance Business Performance & Employee Engagement" by returning speaker Debbie Rodgers.  This will also be Faculty Appreciation Night - a chance to celebrate our many academic members who work with students and promote IMA to future members!
  
  
• Tuesday, Feb 27th (12-1pm CT) 100% Virtual - 1.0 hours of CPE.  Back by popular demand!  Board member Brian Butler, will present "Intermediate Excel Tips & Tricks."  (This will be a joint web offering with our annual sponsor - MGR Accounting Recruiters.)

As always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to contact the chapter.

See you next month!

Mike Lovelace, CMA
co-VP, Member Engagement

Financial and Managerial Accountng Associate

Mon Jan 29 2024

Certifications continue to multiply

80 multiple choice questions kinda like a down graded FAR exam but this is the trend I see

China's Evergrande Ordered to Liquidate

Monday Jan 29 2024

HOng Kong Court Orders Lilquidatioin of what was China's largets real estate developer

CPAs receive lengthy prison sentences

Weekend Jan 28 2024

CPAs receive lenthy sentences for selling fraudulent tax shelters.

It is unusual to see CPAs involved in such schemes though KPMG did so on a firm wide basis.

THis also illlustrates the length to which taxpayers will go to avoid  payi ng taxes.

Frost Bank Position

THursday Jan 25, 2024

Good Morning professor!

 

I am currently employed at The Frost Insurance Agency at Frost Bank as an accounting specialist. We are a small group of 8 specialist but will be down to 7 very soon. I wanted to reach out in the hope you can either spread the word or recommend a potential candidate. For anyone interested in such a position. They can apply at Frostbank.com via the careers tab on bottom of screen OR they can email me for a referrral link. 

 

[email protected] 

210-753-5272

 

Social Mood - CAn't Get Enough of the Quencher

Wed 1/24/2024

The Stanley cup craze has taken a criminal turn. 

A 23-year-old Sacramento, Calif., woman was arrested after allegedly stealing nearly $2,500 worth of Stanley cups from a retail store, local police said. The woman allegedly filled her shopping cart with Stanley Quenchers—the insulated cups that have thrown social media into a frenzy in recent months—and left without paying last week.

When police tracked her down, they found her car filled with 65 of the cups, according to Lt. Chris Ciampa of the Roseville Police Department. She was arrested on charges of grand theft and driving under the influence, Ciampa said. 

The arrest was the latest episode in the viral craze over the water bottles. The stainless-steel tumblers—the popular, 40-ounce version of which sells for $45—have become a status symbol for many women and teens, sparking chaos at retailers and launching a resale market where certain colors sell for more than $200 apiece. The hashtag #stanleytumbler has more than a billion views on TikTok and has been used more than 180,000 times on Instagram.

Nippon's Promise to U S Steel

1/23/2024

Our Plan to Grow U.S Steel

We at Nippon Steel will strengthen the company and honor all union contracts.

 

---

By

Eiji Hashimoto

and

Takahiro Mori

Jan. 22, 2024 5:33 pm ET

 

 

 

58

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A hot steel slab moves along a conveyor of a plate mill at the Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal Corp. plant in Kashima, Japan, April 18, 2018. Photo: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg News

Nippon Steel

’s planned acquisition of

U.S. Steel

has understandably raised questions. We welcome the opportunity to provide more context around our rationale for the purchase and our long-term plans, which are grounded in our belief that U.S. Steel’s next chapter will be successful for all parties.

Nippon Steel is a publicly traded company headquartered in Japan with nearly four decades of experience operating in the U.S. We have investments in eight steel companies in the U.S., employing about 4,000 Americans in total. This has deepened our understanding of the U.S. steel industry, and we have a strong track record of building mutual trust with labor groups and the communities where we operate.

We have long admired U.S. Steel. It enjoys strong customer relationships, world-class manufacturing, and, most important, a talented workforce. We are confident that Nippon Steel is the right investor to build on these strengths. Our advanced production technology, along with our research and development, will add significant value.

We will introduce technology to U.S. Steel that allows the company to produce the highest-quality products for automotive, construction and other industries. The new technology will also further the company’s competitiveness, the broader American steel industry, and the many industries that rely on it. For example, we run many of the largest blast furnaces in the world and hope to bring fresh investment and innovation to U.S. Steel’s blast-furnace facilities. We will also introduce technology to increase efficiency and reduce carbon emissions.

Some things won’t change: the “United States Steel” name, the branding and the Pittsburgh headquarters with its 1,000 corporate roles. We also intend to maintain its manufacturing facilities, allowing U.S. Steel products to be mined, melted and made in America.

Nippon Steel understands its responsibilities to U.S. Steel employees. We will honor all collective-bargaining agreements currently in place with the unions; we don’t anticipate any job losses as a result of the transaction; and we won’t shift existing production or American jobs overseas. The job security of U.S. Steel’s unionized workforce will be greater following this transaction, as U.S. Steel will have the added financial strength of a larger organization with more capital.

Our investment reaffirms the strength of the U.S. economy, the value of American employees, and the ability of the U.S. steel industry to compete globally. The U.S. and Japan benefit from an alliance that advances shared values, and our two companies can do the same.

Messrs. Hashimoto and Mori are, respectively, president and executive vice president of Nippon Steel. Both are representative directors of Nippon Steel.

Bond Credit Ratings

Tuesday Jan 23, 2024

We will be studying  capital markets, bonds as  part of ACCT 2302 this spring.

Here is the wiki article on bond credit rating

It includes an excellent chart from the highest investment grade to the lowest junk grade.

I suggest you book mark this  page on your computer.

 

VIsta Jet Debt Load - An Early warning

Tuesday Jan 23, 2024

 

1. Finance

   ---

2. Heard on the Street

How One Debt-Laden Company Could Create a Storm for Private Jets

VistaJet’s big pandemic expansion now looks overstretched, posing a risk for Canadian plane maker Bombardier

 

By

Jon Sindreu

 

Jan. 22, 2024 5:52 am ET

 

 

 

30

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VistaJet operates a fleet of Bombardier aircraft, including the ultra-long-range Global 7500. Photo: VistaJet

Private jets were a rare pandemic winner in the otherwise decimated travel business. Now that they are coming back down to earth, one heavily indebted operator could give the industry a hard landing.

Based in Malta, privately owned VistaJet grew at breakneck speed after 2019 to become the world’s second-largest flier of private jets. But, through complex financial engineering involving its founder and owner, Swiss entrepreneur Thomas Flohr—who briefly showed up in the Forbes billionaires list in 2018—it also accumulated big debts that could prove unsustainable. The company offers a kind of private-jet taxi service. 

Globally, private-aviation flights are still above pre-Covid levels, but they are steadily coming down from their 2022 peak, data by lessor Global Jet Capital shows.

Investors are getting increasingly worried: A VistaJet bond issued last May, which was very oversubscribed, is now selling off. On Friday, its yield closed at 17.23%, the highest on record. This means a price of 77 cents on the dollar and a spread over Treasury yields of 13.18 percentage points. Ratings companies haven’t downgraded the bonds, which have a B-minus sub-investment grade. But only 9% of securities in that category trade at spreads above 10 percentage points, the typical threshold for distress, S&P Global Market Intelligence data shows.

Disclosures related to VistaJet’s bond showed the company’s net loss rising to $139.5 million in 2022, compared with $50.5 million in 2021. Its net debt increased to an eye-watering 23.5 times equity, up from 7.8 times a year earlier. Auditor EY warned in April that “a material uncertainty exists that may cast significant doubt on the Group’s ability to continue as a going concern,” the Financial Times reported in May.

VistaJet’s debt load is also an underappreciated risk for Canada’s publicly-listed Bombardier, its key plane supplier, and the whole market for secondhand private jets.

Last year,

Delta Air Lines

rescued one of VistaJet’s peers, U.S.-based

Wheels Up

, from a bankruptcy that would have brought 180 planes to the market. VistaJet is bigger. During the pandemic, it acquired rivals such as Air Hamburg and Jet Edge and tripled its owned fleet to 270 jets, including many top-of-the-line Bombardier Globals with a range of 6,000 miles or more.

For now, secondhand jet prices remain sky-high, but some aircraft brokers fear that could soon change. Data from JETNET shows that the number of private aircraft for sale rose to around 1,700 in December, from a low of about 700 in early 2022.

Many of VistaJet’s aircraft deliveries from Bombardier have come via orders made between 2012 and 2015 by Flohr himself through other companies he owns, bond documents show. Export Development Canada, a public export credit agency, financed many of them, though VistaJet was on the hook for the money. Flohr then sold options to buy these planes to a firm now owned by VistaJet. Some were canceled.