Scammers : Missing mutual funds seller is focus of 3 investigations

VANCOUVER— At least three investigations are underway in the case of an investment dealer and former Canadian Olympic rower who has gone missing from Victoria.

Investia Financial Services Inc. has launched a probe into the activities of Harold Backer, who is also the subject of two missing-persons investigations — in his hometown and in Washington state.

The Victoria Police Department has said Backer, 52, told his wife on Nov. 3 that he was going for a bike ride but failed to return home.

“Harold’s family needs to know that he is safe,” the department said in a statement asking for the public’s help in finding Backer.

Police in Port Angeles, Wash., said last week that an officer who viewed video from a street security camera on Nov. 3 noted a man fitting Backer’s description was aboard a ferry from Victoria, a 90minute trip away.

Pierre Picard, a spokesman for Investia in Quebec City, issued a statement saying Backer has been a representative for the company since June 2005 and it has never received complaints from clients.

“Although Investia has no reason to believe that there has been any wrongdoing on the part of the representative, the company takes this situation very seriously and is conducting a full investigation into Mr. Backer’s professional activities with Investia.”

The Canadian Securities Administrators lists Backer as a seller of mutual funds in B.C. and Ontario, and its website says he agreed to be supervised. Investia said that is “in no way related to his mutual fund dealings with clients.”

“Investia’s thoughts are with the family of Mr. Backer during this difficult time,” the company said.

Backer competed in rowing in the 1984, 1988 and 1992 Olympic Games.

A report in the Victoria Times Colonist said Backer wrote a letter to his clients before he disappeared and apologized for mismanaging their money.

Reasons for yesterday’s big rally...

More job cuts in energy sector 
The chase by Frances Horodelski:

Born on this day in 1938 – Gordon Lightfoot. A favourite: “In the early morning rain with a dollar in my hand, With an aching in my heart and my pockets full of sand, Now, I'm a long way from home and I miss my loved ones so, In the early morning rain with no place to go.

There are lots of reasons for yesterday’s big rally (continuing tomorrow) but the simplest is that stocks had been falling pretty dramatically for a week and needed a respite. Drying had dried up during the decline (4.5% from intra-day peak to intra-day low November 3 through November 13 for the S&P), slicing through two major moving averages (100 dma and 200 dma) and nearing the 50. The markets were somewhat oversold. It was an opportunity. The other reason maybe that central banks will blink (the Fed) or be even more generous with liquidity (ECB). Will it last? Is there a bond buying opportunity here as well. The bulls say yes. The bears are quiet. Today, we begin with green all around the world with the exception of mainland China markets (down modestly in Shanghai).

Our news will focus on the continuation of job cuts in the energy sector – the latest includesEnbridge’s 5% reduction. At the same time, we’ll be watching its major comparative TransCanada which is having an analyst day today where TRP will focus on its portfolio of projects and the sustainability and growth of its dividend. While the stock isn’t cheap, the 5% dividend yield will be supportive in this market environment. U.S. retail will also be in focus. Westaim is also having an investor meeting today. Scotia is hosting Air Canada and CP Rail executives (among others) at its transportation conference.

Home Depot reported a decent beat $1.35 vs $1.15 last year and expectations of $1.32 and look for $5.36 for the year (the high end of its outlook range). While apparel retailers are feeling the heat of warm weather (and let’s admit it, little in the way of must have fashion trends), Home Depot (maybe Lowes this week too) are enjoying the benefit of a very strong U.S. housing market and warm weather (except, I’m sure, for shovels). HD is higher by 2.7% this morning on the numbers. Walmart’s report slightly better than expectations with five quarters in a row of same store sale gains. Outlook narrowed for the year ($4.50-$4.65 versus the street’s $4.40-$4.60 range). The stock is up 2.4% after a 2.5% jump yesterday.

It is the persistence of decline that kills you. In 1982, that’s what it felt like with stocks as the averages made new lows and then more new lows. Gold and silver (and many other commodities) feel that way today. Silver has been down 12 of the last 13 trading sessions falling 13% and feeling bottomless. Gold has also seen a relentless sell-off, down more than $100 in a month and trolling five year lows. The day the bear ended and the markets took off in the summer of 1982, it was a surprise with lots and lots of denials. Are we there yet? Don’t think so for commodities – but to state the obvious, we’re closer than we were.

Speaking of trolling, the U.S. new low list (of large cap names) from yesterday included 10 retailing names (out of 16 new lows) such as Macys, Fossil, VF Corp., Bed Bath & Beyond, the Gap, CarMax, Urban Outfitters. In Canada, the new low list includes Rona, Aimia, Alaris Royalty, Corus and Ensign.

The economic calendar is empty in Canada. In the U.S., we have inflation, industrial production, investment flow data and some housing data. European data included lackluster inflation data in the UK and a decent ZEW survey in Germany.

BNN’s line up today includes a plethora of great things including Jameson Berkow’s continuing look at Fort McMurray. We have CEOs from Skyline REIT, Kelt Exploration, Total Energy Service, Canyon as well as the Business Development Bank of Canada. We’ll also speak to a Trillion Dollar Titan – Russ Koesterich, global chief strategist at Blackrock.

Canada's New Energy 
The chase by Frances Horodelski:

I believe, I hope not naively, that the world is a better place than the events in Paris on Fridaynight. Let’s start the week with solemnity but hope for peace and light to overcome.

After a nasty week (S&P down 3.6%, TSX down 3.5%, Nasdaq down 4.3% while oil dropped 6%), the markets are stable in Europe and the U.S. futures are modestly higher. Bond prices are a little higher. Most commodities are a little stronger while currencies (except the U.S. dollar) are weak-ish. Despite concerns that the after-close announcement of the doubling of margin requirements in China would sink stocks there, the Shenzhen popped 2% The Hang Seng that trades as much with the west as the east did close 1.72% lower.

This week on BNN will be the week-long look at Canada’s New Energy beginning today. Watch for special items all week including a focus on the changes in Fort McMurray.

Here’s the results of a peripatetic walk through the blogs and the papers on the weekend. First, according to ModernGraham.com, the most undervalued of Dow stocks based on analysis of “intrinsic value” are Wal-Mart (70% of that value), Apple (45%), Travelers (43.5%) and IBM (39%). The most expensive stock: Merck (666% of intrinsic value). For those watching, with the Fed, the economic data points that justify a December rate hike, here are a few – November jobs number was the highest in a year and 100,000 jobs about the six year average, U.S. auto sales are rising at the quickest pace in a decade, housing markets are growing at the fastest pace in 15 years and the 2.5% rise in earnings is at a six year high. Rising non-market risk events could result in a “blink” but the fundamentals don’t justify it. For the stock market, from oversold to overbought to oversold again, here are some points. The ratio of highs to lows is now moving back to levels seen when the market was oversold in August/September. And the number of markets trading above their respective 200-day moving averages dropped to zero. Some use these as decent “oversold indicators”. But if you want to be bearish – look at charts of art sales (off the charts), U.S. corporate debt levels (2x levels prior to the financial crisis), corporate spreads are widening. And finally, from a New York Times article on oil (which totally erred on the inventory levels), a market pundit noted “the market isn’t pricing in any risk, geopolitical risk, for oil.”

From Barron’s (which yells “Trump is wrong” on its cover), items of note: 70% of Chinese companies missed earnings expectations in the most recent quarter (versus 75% beating in North America); Bonds bulls are at an anemic 58% (some technicians are saying bonds should be bought), the biggest big board shorts are in General Electric, Corning and Synchrony (the first and third of these connected through a tender offer), Tempur Sealy (highlighted bullishly in the magazine) has 10,000 stock keeping units (SKUs). 10,000! Mattresses! For every 1% move in interest rates, Bank of America revenue changes by $4.5 billion (or 5%). Other bullish stories include Emerson and Genesee & Wyoming Railroad.

This week, items of note include the continuation of retail earnings (Home Depot, Walmart, Lowes in the U.S., Loblaws and Metro in Canada as well as Canadian retail sales at the end of the week), IPO prices for hot deals like Square and Match.com (Wednesday), Kelloggs meets with analysts on Friday (I like the new Special K commercial), Cisco’s new CEO meets with analysts on Thursday), CPR’s President and COO speaks at a conference in Toronto on Tuesday (and BNN will be speaking with him too), The annual Robin Hood conference starts today in New York – Bill Ackman and Jamie Dimon will be there. Today, we’ll have an indepth look at 13F activity. For reference, there were lots of sales and lots of purchases in Valeant during the quarter – some stand outs include initiation of positions at Teachers, Arrow Street, Point 72 and Iguana Health. Sequoia Fund added 2 million shares. For Suncor, William Blair Investment Management initiated a position with 8.3 million shares and Findlay Park almost tripled its position to 6.1 million from 2.1 million shares. We’ll speak to the CEO of DHX Media. We’ll talk energy, we’ll speak to a trillion dollar titan and get lots of Canadian perspective and ideas. Big hotel deal today with Marriott buying Starwood for more than $12 billion. The week begins.

Finally, don’t trust what you read and check the facts. There was a Facebook post circling the globe about the nasty events that closed last week – and nasty it was – Paris, Beirut, Baghdad, Mexico, Japan (the latter were earthquakes). But the conclusion was that 115,000 people had died in all these horrible events. Each life lost is precious – don’t worsen that loss by over-estimating death tolls. Heartless.

Short seller accuses drug giant Valeant of fraud

Price of Valeant shares swelled by 2,631 per cent before plunge wiped out $50 billion in value

 

The share-price meltdown at Montreal-based Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. serves at least one useful purpose. It’s a primer on stocks to avoid.

Valeant, the largest Canadian drugmaker, has been a stock-market darling, its shares skyrocketing in price by 2,631 per cent between 2008 and August of this year.

But the stock has plummeted since reaching its peak value of $263.52 (U.S.) per share in August to its current $111.51. That’s a two-thirds plunge, wiping out close to $50 billion in shareholder value.

No fewer than six U.S. government probes are underway into alleged Valeant price-gouging; unusual accounting and acquisition practices; and alleged bilking of Medicaid, the U.S. program that provides assistance to the poor and elderly.

Valeant stock began to soar after Valeant appointed as its turnaround CEO one J. Michael Pearson, 54, a London, Ont., native and son of a phone installer. Pearson propelled himself from a lower-middle-class upbringing to a 23-year career at management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. Pearson eventually headed McKinsey’s global pharmaceutical practice.

A troubled Valeant, then based in California, was so impressed with Pearson, its McKinsey consultant, that it hired him as CEO in 2008. Pearson’s business plan at Valeant hasn’t changed since Day One. 

 
He cut the company’s R&D budget to less than 5 per cent of revenues. (Pfizer Inc., by comparison, spends the industry norm of 14 per cent.) He began buying scores of small, run-down drugmakers that possessed one or two potentially lucrative drugs in their otherwise dustgathering product lines.

Quebec-based Valeant’s business model of buying drugmakers and hiking prices on their products created unsustainable growth, David Olive writes.

Pearson immediately hiked the prices of those selected drugs by as much as 500 per cent, while laying off many of the acquired companies’ employees.

In 2010, Pearson engineered a reverse takeover of Montreal-based Biovail Corp. Valeant inherited Biovail’s lingering legal woes, including the recent U.S. probe into possible Medicaid fraud. But in acquiring Biovail, Pearson was able to domicile Valeant outside the U.S., in a corporate-friendly Canada where Valeant’s tax rate dropped to 5 per cent.

Valeant isn’t alone in the drug industry’s relatively new practice of imposing outrageous price hikes. But, as the New York Times recently noted, “the company leading the pack in drug-price increases is Canada-based Valeant.” Fair enough. Between 2011 and 2015, Valeant raised prices on its drugs by 20 per cent at least 122 times.

Why haven’t prospective buyers balked at Valeant’s apparent pricegouging? Some have.

Express Scripts and CVS Health, the two biggest U.S. drug benefit managers, said this year that they would no longer pay for drugs whose sticker shock was not accompanied by any improvement. That describes most of the products peddled by Valeant, Horizon Pharma, Mallinckrodt PLC and other firms in this unattractive niche.

Pearson has snapped up obscure drugs that are used by small patient populations, are life-saving drugs and for which there are few if any alternatives. On Feb. 10, for instance, Valeant bought the rights to two life-saving heart drugs, Nitropress and Isuprel. That same day, Valeant hiked their prices by 525 per cent and 212 per cent, respectively, without doing a thing to improve their efficacy.

These two drugs have been around for decades. Isuprel is used in treating heart-rhythm abnormalities, and Nitropress is administered in emergencies when a patient’s blood pressure has increased to lifethreatening levels. Doctors insist there are few reliable alternatives to these drugs.

But baked into the Valeant business model are dangers. Acquisition targets with hidden gems might dry up. And eventually there could be pushback on spectacular pricehikes, from the U.S. medical community and consumer-rights regulators such as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission.

That backlash has indeed begun, with several drugmakers this summer rolling back triple-digit price hikes within days of trying to impose them.

Where does that leave Valeant, whose M.O. is to maintain its shareprice momentum purely through nosebleed pricing of highly specialized medications? With financial engineering, claims Citron Research, a short seller based in Beverly Hills, Calif.

Short sellers have a bias. They are trying to drive down the price of a stock.

That said, the “shorts” are often right in calling out bad corporate actors.

On Oct. 19, Citron accused Valeant of engaging in fraud, saying it has been propping up its reported sales figures by making “phantom sales” to a network of shell companies. That is a commonplace, if dubious, practice known as “channel stuffing.”

Valeant denies the Citron allegations, which Pearson says are “completely untrue.”

Just the same, an already declining Valeant share price fell off a cliff the day Citron’s allegations were released. And there’s plenty more downside risk to Valeant’s current $111.51 share price, given the U.S. government probes and the likelihood of class-action lawsuits against Valeant.

Do investors really need reminding to stay clear of stocks like Valeant? Yes, obviously.

Valeant has a debt load of about $30 billion resulting from its scores of junk-bond-financed acquisitions. The peak $90-billion valuation that credulous investors placed on a company with a debt-equity ratio so radically out of whack was a triumph of hope — or greed — over experience.

That same lofty stock valuation was placed on a Valeant that lost a staggering total of $1 billion in 2012 and 2013, on sales that, to that point, hadn’t surpassed $6 billion. Any enterprise losing $1 for every $6 it takes in is flirting with a one-way trip to the bone yard.

Growth exclusively by acquisition is a sign that a company can’t or doesn’t care to manage its existing operations. That kind of growth is unsustainable.

Valeant’s revenue growth has exceeded profit growth by a wide margin. Any dealmaker can add sales growth by simply buying another company. A dealmaker CEO always has dozens of deals in his head, and hasn’t the time to properly manage the companies he has bought.

Don’t buy a stock because the “smart money” is doing so. Among the many prominent investors in Valeant are funds controlled by U.S. activist investor Bill Ackman, which have taken a $9.3-billion paper loss on the company.

And don’t expect your broker to save you. On Oct. 22, BMO Capital Markets, an erstwhile cheerleader of Valeant’s “limited R&D and aggressive M&A-driven strategy,” downgraded Valeant stock, saying “we cannot defend” Valeant’s business model.

By that point, Valeant shares had already lost close to 60 per cent of their value.