KEEP YOUR EYES ON THE PRIZE

Evaluate the appropriate monitoring and forecasting techniques for determining corporate risk and profit performance.
Employ the correct mathematical tools for investment modelling, not the jazziest or what experts tell you is in vogue.
Monitor the investment throughout, the annual AGM is just too late. Do not go to sleep for a year and wake up at the AGM. Or, you could send your Yakuza influences to the AGM to exercise your Kalashnikov school of hitting back. Everyone is angry across all age groups and investor categories.
What do the other investor advocacy groups, e.g. CalPers, PIRC, say? Establish your sanction mechanisms and keep up to date on developments.
The AEW early warning radar has been described as a way in which we can raise our sensory antennae towards potential corporate risks. There are already alternative radar warning systems for companies. These can take passive or active stances on handling risk. The passive risk posture adopts analysis and reporting as the actions carried out, but it has to be complemented by active risk management. The Enron crash destroyed investor confidence. Yet, there are major lessons from the Enron debacle alone that offer a wealth of investigative knowledge, such as developing an AEW investor warning radar. We need to take it onboard.
The Basel II loss database incorporates a predictive element within the risk-reporting framework for forecasting likely financial damage. It is in its elementary stages of development as a method of judging the future, so greater accuracy will continue to be desired. It is a tool for the operational risk management decision-making process within the company.
Keeping your eye on the prize is all but lost when people equate booked revenue with cash. Managing all business risks does not mean being expert in credit and market risk and letting operational risk hang. The top management and links to auditors are brought to book and examined under the microscope. By doing so, we are looking into operational risk in detail – the risk that is often the hardest to model.

HITTING BACK

Place less reliance on the legal system for redress – it is often too slow and expensive. There are cheaper and faster industrial arbitrators. You can create your own insurance protection. Then, there is the more constructive financing and hedging role being offered by traditional insurance companies and captives to handle your operational risk loss. Make necessary variations and amendments to take into account local risk practices, e.g. in an emerging market. You should have thought about it beforehand, not afterwards.
The Kalashnikov school of risk management is a frivolous thought at first sight. But occasionally, you have to show the potential or intent to injure a counterparty, even if it means a non-violent sense of destroying their reputation. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer’s investigation and fines on Wall Street, the shareholders’ revolt against executive pay at GlaxoSmithKline, freezing the payoff to Messier at Vivendi, the lawsuit against the Equitable Life directors are just examples of this vengeful trend. The Russians call this “kompromat”. For some companies, their reputation is their livelihood. It can be destroyed.