Boards also lent executives huge sums of money, sometimes to buy shares in their firms but often with no specified purpose, and repayments were later waived.
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Investors are also suspicious of private equity shops because these companies are partnerships whose first allegiance is to the investors in their funds, not in their firms.
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But other embattled chief executives, including James Cayne of Bear Stearns and Charles Prince of Citigroup, have survived, for now, despite big shake-ups in their firms' bond trading divisions.
O.s of two well-known public companies were on the phone to Cooperman lobbying for his support. (He is a major investor in their firms.) Companies courting his investment dollars pick up Cooperman at Teterboro Airport in their private jets to give him a tour of their projects.
But other embattled chief executives, including James Cayne of Bear Stearns (nyse: BSC - news - people ) and Charles Prince of Citigroup (nyse: C - news - people ), have survived, for now, despite big shake-ups in their firms' bond trading divisions.
Given that the banks themselves are eager to sell their large shareholdings in firms within their own keiretsu (or group), further falls seem likely.
You can also throw Italy in the mix as their firms show a decline in all four metrics this year.
Banks have also become more restrictive in their lending to firms and households.
When they try to persuade investors, and often themselves, that synergies abound (that two and two equals not merely five but six or more) in their takeovers of firms engaged in activities that they know next to nothing about, companies prefer such euphemisms as multi-industry business or non-related diversification.
In the new economy, firms cannot simply raise their prices: if they do, they will quickly lose out in a global market where firms and consumers can choose their suppliers at will.
Dr Singer argues that donors would do well to consider investing in biotech, and encourage their private firms to establish partnerships with research centres in poorer places, as part of their overseas-aid packages.
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Firms with CEOs in the highest 20% of realised pay generated stock returns 60% greater than those of other firms in their industries over the previous three years.
The fusion of West and East Germany in 1990 led to a spending boom in which big firms became interested in extending their empires and neglected financial discipline.
In theory, the outsourcing firms like Hudson Legal include overhead in what they charge plaintiff firms for their lawyers, meaning they should just pass through those charges to their shareholder clients, instead of marking them up.
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Antitrust authorities in India or Australia may fear that the merger will harm their consumers, but because little of the two firms' business is in their countries be powerless to act.
When possible, Boston financiers back entrepreneurs who have worked at other firms in their portfolios.
Much better to set them up in firms of their own and give them contracts.
In their wake, service firms have multiplied, property prices have burgeoned and investment is up.
Companies will also now be able to sell their stakes in other firms free of capital-gains tax.
The European Commission has urged other member states to check whether Bioland supplied firms in their countries.
For this reason, Britons at home never need to use Mandarin in their dealings with Chinese firms.
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This situation can provoke anxiety and fear in project managers and their firms.
Some non-French managers in Paris are asking their firms to move them offshore.
Too many Gulf nationals receive a government pay cheque for a meaningless job, or owe their jobs in private firms to a hiring quota.
These are NOT matters reviewed by accounting firms in their audits.
The hired lobbyists tend to be looked on suspiciously by their counterparts in firms and trade associations whose relations with the European Commission may go back decades.
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And in a bid to loosen the incestuous links between finance and industry, the government is making investment funds reduce their stakes in individual firms to below 7%.
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One of her findings: The majority of employers in her study described their firms as having distinct personalities that come from the hobbies and presentation styles of their employees.
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In their reports, these firms will provide important insights into how they fared over the past three months as well as what they expect to see as we progress further into 2012.
The Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee, which has been looking into the matter, has said that it will examine the role of the big four accounting firms including PwC in helping firms minimise their tax bills.
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