In the latest quarter, Nordstrom took charges totaling $43.9 million before taxes for severance pay for former executives, write- offs of certain technology investments and the drop in value of the company's investment in Streamline.com, an Internet grocery retailer.
Chief Financial Officer Don Leclair Don Leclair said most of the write-downs were caused by the fall in value of the company's truck and sports-utility vehicle inventory and lease portfolio.
Professor Chien defines significant operational impact resulting from a demand letter as being a business strategy pivot, product change, delay in hiring or meeting operational milestone, reduction in value of the company, and/or shutdown of the business.
Analysts expressed amazement that the regulator had clearly not anticipated such a dramatic fall in share prices, particularly given the collapse in the value of companies selling annuities after the Chancellor's Budget statement the previous week.
Given their extra leverage, that is consistent with a fall in the value of companies owned by private equity of well over 50%.
Bloomberg News calculated the richest 25 Russians on the Forbes list lost a collective $230 billion since the market peak, based on declines in value of publicly traded companies and analysts' estimates of private company losses.
The company's business is to invest in listed Nordic companies with good potential for value appreciation, and through active ownership contribute to continuous growth in value of its portfolio companies.
You might think the pay of consultants could be tied to growth in the equity value of companies they had assisted.
The short sellers were proved right, and also came to be seen as culprits; so was mark-to-market accounting, since it caused sudden, cataclysmic drops in the book value of companies whose holdings had become illiquid.
AOL took a first-quarter writeoff of $54 billion to reflect the loss in value of the combined company.
