Posts Categorized: Financial Accounting

Your tax dollars at work; competing against other tax dollars

Posted by & filed under Financial Accounting, Public Finance.

Description: For generations schools have competed against other schools in sports, drama, music and other activities. But would you believe Ontario’s four different publicly funded systems are competing each other in an effort to recruit systems from one of their three “competitiors.” Apparently in an area of declining enrollments attracting students to a school may… Read more »

Betting on buses

Posted by & filed under Financial Accounting, Uncategorized.

Description: With schools opening all over Canada today, it might be time for investors to look at those bright yellow buses students are boarding this morning. Student Transportation Inc of Barrie, Ontario has been producing better than solid results for investors, particularly in terms of dividend yield, by providing student transportation across North America. Student… Read more »

Secret bank fine

Posted by & filed under Financial Accounting, Internal control.

Description: FinTRAC, the Financial Transaction and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada, imposed its first fine on a Canadian bank this past week. The fine of $1.1 million was because a Canadian bank did not report some type of suspicious transaction to the authorities. The only problem was FinTRAC didn’t reveal who got fined. And all… Read more »

Good time to cut the debt

Posted by & filed under Accounting Principles, Financial Accounting.

Description: The general theme is that things have been tough for the last little while in the oil patch. But some companies with cash to spare have been taking advantage of the downturn to repurchase their own bonds at “60 cents on the dollar.” Companies like Encana and Repsol SA are reducing their long-term debt… Read more »

Mega-Food

Posted by & filed under Financial Accounting, Managerial Accounting.

Description: As some have observed, for years people have been putting Heinz Ketchup on Kraft Dinner. So maybe that serves as visual reminder of another mega merger this past week as the two companies join together. One motivation seems to be to open the Kraft brand to more international markets. The second motivation could be… Read more »

Blackberry’s black ink

Posted by & filed under Financial Accounting, Marketing & Strategy.

Description: Well, there’s sort of good news and bad news to this story. The good news is Blackberry’s fourth quarter results surprised observers with $28 million in reported profit, about 4 cents per share. The bad news is that the revenue figure of $660 million was below what some analysts felt it should be. The CEO… Read more »

Big student loans write-off

Posted by & filed under Canadian Government, Financial Accounting.

Description: The Government of Canada is writing off about $300 million in student loans, most of which was defaulted on before 2009. The details were revealed in supplementary spending estimates tabled in Parliament on February 19. Jessica McCormick of the Canadian Federation of Students commented that the amount of the defaults points to a need… Read more »

Google cost control

Posted by & filed under Financial Accounting, Financial Reporting and Analysis, Uncategorized.

Description: Googles latest results have fallen short of analyst projections. Both revenue and profit were below expectations. One issue noted was that Google’s operating expenses had increased by 35% from the previous year, perhaps due to some projects outside the core business, such as the so-called driverless car project. Source: Globe and Mail.com Date:  January 29, 2015… Read more »