You most likely arrived here in search of information about Tim Dooling......you probably got an e-mail from me and wanted to see what this nisland domain is all about......guess what, you're in luck... This page contains pretty much everything that Tim wants you to know about him, so browse away:
Latest Essay: December 7th, 2011 American Tower Corporation.....RUN!!
Published on SeekingAlpha.com, on Decmeber 20th, 2011, available here: http://seekingalpha.com/article/314973-american-tower-corporation-fooling-some-of-the-people?source=from_friend_client
In Defense of Transparency September 6th, 2011 Tim Dooling, CFAIn a perfectly transparent world, there would be no incentive for the con-artist to play the shell game. It simply would not work, the artist’s financial incentives for creating the deception would not exist. Wouldn’t that be nice. Traditionally
corporations tend to treat financial information as “confidential” and
therefore are loathe to disclose any more than they have to. Why is this?
The answer is easy; since financial statements are the ultimate
scorecard of a managers skill, the less information disclosed provides
potential critics with less ammunition.
This is where the shell game begins.
In the situation of a private corporation, the management generally
relies on a prosaic presentation of summary information as sufficient. What they are doing is nothing different
than the three-card-Monte dealer.
All may not be as it is portrayed, for instance: “Revenue is growing and our balance sheet is strong, thanks for calling” - This
could also mean “We are selling $10 bills for $8.50 and doing
lots of business, we noticed our cash was running out so we sold securities
diluting your interest to .00001% in return for more cash”
In a Perfect World
What
would be wrong with full transparency?
Would it not allow everyone to make more informed (hence better)
decisions. Hmmm…. If a customer or
supplier had full information to assess the creditworthiness of a company,
would they not offer better prices? It
would speed the process of prosperity for good businesses and the demise of bad
ones. This is a good thing, that is how
capitalism works.
Instead
here in 2011 we have an edifice of law that protects and encourages the
three-card-Monte dealer. It hinders
proper evaluation of investments and is essentially a tax on society. A bad company with a good lawyer will destroy
vast amounts of value before their inevitable failure. This should not be the case. If a business is prosperous, why not
advertise that prosperity to gain better terms from suppliers and
customers? Oh, you say because that
would alert the world to the opportunity the company is enjoying and invite
competition……hmmmm….. So is it preferable to hide in a dark cave fearful of
competition? That is tantamount to
admitting to have a low skill level which would not be able to succeed in a
fair game. Therefore the principal should hire a better agent.
The Informational Advantage and Agency Problem
Just as time is money, so is information. To withhold information is to withhold money. To the extent a manager (an agent for a principal) can withhold information from the principal for whom they are supposed to be acting on behalf of they will. This creates conflict. In my world obfuscation of information is the same as withholding it. It is not sufficient to supply information buried within the dense legal text of some agreement, yet this happens all the time. In fact the reality of the recent financial crisis is exactly this. Unskilled agents made poor decisions which they insulated themselves from with legal formulations. Wall Street sold toxic assets because they had an informational advantage, and a thick prospectus. The Directors who hired the unskilled agents had "Directors and Officers Insurance", insulating them from the consequences of their poor decisions. Again shifting the ultimate cost along to society at large.....This is the reality of our society today which is sadly distant from the vision of the founders. An investor (or Principal) via a Board of Directors hires a manager (an Agent) to run a company. That manager is supposed to utilize their specialized knowledge for the benefit of the Principal. Seems easy enough until you try to do it. What happens is that the manager gains access to information and can choose which information to share with the Principal. How do they decide what information to share with the Principal? In my experience it is only the information which is in the best interest of the Agent, not the Principal…..hmmmm.
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Bio: CFA Charterholder, MBA (Accounting emphasis), BA (Finance). Highly proficient Russian speaker, fearless.
Timothy P. Dooling, CFA Tim Dooling, a Chartered Financial Analyst, has over 19 years of investment experience. Mr. Dooling has been actively managing equity and derivative portfolios since 2001. He has held Senior Analyst positions at Torrey Pines Capital Management, Avalon Capital, and Sempra Commodities. He has been responsible for structuring and management of >billion dollar equity and derivative portfolios. Mr. Dooling was earlier the portfolio manager for North Island Partners, an equity long/short hedge fund in La Jolla. After graduating from Santa Clara University in 1991, Mr. Dooling spent the next 10 years working overseas in the far corners of the planet. Fom 1991 to 1995, while based in Tashkent, Uzbekistan he was responsible for the research and execution of private equity and commodity transactions in Central Asia for the Meredith Jones Group, an English Cotton merchant. Subsequently, from 1995-2001 he worked for Robert Fleming Securities as an equity research analyst covering companies in Eastern Europe, the Middle East and Africa while based in London, England. Mr. Dooling holds a Masters Degree (Accounting) from the University of San Diego. He graduated from the University of Santa Clara in 1991 with a degree in Finance. He is a fluent speaker of the Russian language and licensed Merchant Mariner. Including commercial passenger vessel Captain (100 tons) and a able seaman (unlimited). Mr. Dooling is a member of the American Finance Association, and the CFA Institute. |
