Blog - Robin Banerjee

Things I’ve Stopped Buying Since Going Zero Waste

by Robin Banerjee July 25, 2022

written by Robin Banerjee

Zero waste style travel is back. The pandemic-weary population is emerging from lockdowns with the goal of relaxing and reviving senses dulled by one zoom meeting too many. Whether it is finally taking the postponed honeymoon, or just getting some time away from home, travellers seeking a uniquely restorative experience can find it at Sunset at the Palms, a boutique Jamaican resort with the tagline, “Sensory Magic”.

Don’t wait. The purpose of our lives is to be happy!

Upon arrival, your senses will be rewarded with the pleasant scent of lemongrass oil used to clean the natural wood found throughout the room, creating a relaxing atmosphere within the space.

Sunset at the Palms offers an indulgent, adults-only experience. The resort has always featured its own version of “social distancing,” with just 85 rooms and 25 acres of beachfront and gardens for maximum privacy.

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking

Steve Jobs

You have the choice of rooms or suites, in one of the resorts “treehouses,” an individual Asian-inspired bungalow featuring private balconies located within lush gardens for privacy, but just steps from the beach, with full amenities, including wi-fi, king-size beds, and luxurious bathrooms.

The Best Restaurants In The Sunset

Sunset at the Palms tantalizes the taste buds with dining options including buffets, a la carte restaurants, room service, and private beach bar and grill amenities. The resort showcases the tastes of the island with Caribbean fusion cuisine, while providing a range of dining options to suit all tastes.

Enjoy the menu with many selections:

Buttermilk Pancakes – Available with Strawberry, Cherry, Blueberry, or Apple topping.
Short Stack – An order of two large, fluffy pancakes, available with fruit, nuts, or chocolate topping.
Malted Waffle – A large Belgian waffle made with malted batter.
French Toast – Three slices of Texas toast dipped in a creamy batter.

A weekly cocktail party adds spice to the experience. Relaxing. At the resort’s Ginger Lily Spa, “our mission is to help you relax,” says Kamarla Simms, general manager. Curate your experience from a menu of wraps, scrubs, massages, and facial treatments designed to help you unwind and rejuvenate. A full-service beauty salon is available, along with manicure and pedicure services.

Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.

When you are ready to indulge your sense of excitement, check out the range of water- sports opportunities at the resort’s on-site water-sports center. Want to leave your stress on the water? The resort has kayaks, paddleboards, or the low-key pedal boats. Snorkeling equipment is available as well, so you can experience the ever-changing undersea environment.

Not only do visitors to a bed and breakfast get a unique perspective on the place they are visiting, they have options for special packages not available in other hotel settings. Bed and breakfasts can partner easily with local businesses for a smoothly organized and highly personalized vacation experience. The Fife and Drum Inn offers options such as the Historic Triangle Package that includes three nights at the Inn, breakfasts, and admissions to historic Williamsburg, Jamestown, and Yorktown. Bed and breakfasts also lend themselves to romance.

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced

Helpful hosts can design guest packages built around proposals, anniversaries, or just a special getaway. Visit fifeanddruminn.com for more details about how a bed and breakfast makes for a memorable travel experience.

Part of the charm of a bed and breakfast is the uniqueness; art, décor, and food are integrated to create a complete experience. For example, the Fife and Drum retains the colonial feel of the area in all its guest rooms. Special features include antique furnishings, elegant four poster beds in some guest rooms, as well folk art and artifacts from the restoration period of the historic area available for guests to enjoy.

Many bed and breakfasts are historic properties, often located in the center of scenic areas. The Fife and Drum Inn has been part of Sharon’s family for generations. The building was constructed in 1933 by her grandfather as a combination of stores with apartments above, and is a short walk to the sights and sounds of Colonial Williamsburg, including the holiday Grand Illumination fireworks display.

Travellers seeking a personal touch and insider stories would do well to consider staying at a local bed and breakfast (B&B).B&Bs “are more intimate, with much more personal attention.

“Sunset at the Palms invites travel enthusiasts to experience the healing warmth of the ever-present sunshine” says Ian Kerr, managing director. The white-sand beaches and tropical foliage in the heart of Negril is designed to provide a truly serene, intimate, and restorative getaway.

July 25, 2022 0 comment

Corporate Frauds: Getting Bigger & Bolder

by Robin Banerjee February 22, 2022

written by Robin Banerjee

Greed is the big issue. Love of money is the root cause of many evils. And it seems that insatiability is growing rapidly. But let me fall back upon an age-old hypothesis of the famous fraud triangle. They are Pressure, Opportunty and Rationalisation.

When my last book titled: “Corporate Frauds: Bigger, Broader, Bolder”, got published in December 2021, I did not foresee that within two months, I would need to write an article announcing business crimes are becoming larger, deeper and audacious. My original thinking was, as time would go by, corporate frauds are likely to extend its tentacles. But unfortunately, things are already going out of control!

Let me cite a few instances showing how corporate frauds are gaining new dimensions.

Biggest con game in running a stock-exchange

I have never come across an instance where a professional executive would run an organization based on advice from a ‘yogi’! Many Indian entrepreneurs and managers do take guidance from some seers or gurujis, regarding favourable dates, timings, etc. But, can you digest the news of the CEO of our National Stock Exchange (NSE), Chitra Ramkrishna, was consulting for corporate decisions, an unnamed yogi for 20 years through emails? More importantly, the CEO was apparently sharing most confidential matters including numbers and targets of NSE with the mystic. Whether the fakir was an insider or outsider, remains yet a mystery.

The corporate governance transgression is unprecedented and the CEO behaviour preposterous!~

Biggest bank fraud

Bank loans of Rs 23,000 crore from 28 banks, for over 5 years, was siphoned off by one of the largest private shipbuilding companies, ABG Shipyard Ltd. During 2012-17 (though the fraud could have been structured earlier between 2005-2012) the ex-CMD, few Board members and others, apparently colluded to divert and misappropriate funds.

In essence, bank loans were used for purposes other than for which they were released. The loans were apparently diverted through 98 sister concern companies and mainly used to create personal assets. Why did the fraud go undetected for so long?

The worse is, during 2010 and 2013, the company’s profit (PBT) numbers were around Rs 300 crore (negative results started flowing from 2014 onwards). And its fixed assets were rather insufficient at around Rs 2,500 crore. How come the company managed to garner and swindle Rs 23,000 Cr of bank’s money? The math just does not tally.

Let me give you another set of figures. Between 2013 and 2017 (when the company was under financial restructuring), the Sales dropped from Rs 2,000 Cr to almost nil, whereas the Financing Costs bloated from Rs 400 Cr to Rs 1,500 Cr. What were the banks doing during this time? Were they not receiving the quarterly financial numbers?

Bank frauds perhaps can’t get worse!

All Independent Directors resigning

Very rarely does ‘all’ the Independent Directors (IDs) resign in a huff. The recent episode of IDs resigning by firing off a scorching letter to the regulators, citing corporate governance issues, have shaken the business corridors. This incidence took place in power solutions provider PTC India’s subsidiary company – PTC India Financial Services (PFS), an NBFC meant for infrastructure funding.

The inside stories of why all the PFS’s IDs resigned en-masse is yet not known, but surely things are getting murkier in some Board rooms!

What’s going wrong?

The above three recent episodes have given fresh new colours to the India story of good governance. Let me try to hazard some guesses as to what is going wrong.

Greed is the big issue. Love of money is the root cause of many evils. And it seems that insatiability is growing rapidly.

Apart from the main cause, let me fall back upon an age-old hypothesis of the famous ‘fraud triangle’. They are:

Pressure – the motivation to commit fraud. It is possible that there was pressure to do something by the IDs in PTC India Financial Services, which forced them to resign en-masse. Pressure to out-perform does lead to many infractions, and PFS may have been guilty of it.

Opportunity – given a chance, many deceptions could arise. The massive fraud of ABG Shipyard could be the result of laxity on bankers’ part to monitor how the company was performing and what was it doing with the huge sums of money being lent.

Rationalization – it is the mindset to justify that it is alright to commit hoax. The creation of the mystic yogi by the CEO of NSE could be the result of her mental justification by creating emails vindicating her probable ill moves.

A global phenomenon

The enhanced business crimes and the concomitant interest of the general public is not only an India phenomenon. Corporate fraud is becoming the talking point of many across the globe.

Recently, Switzerland’s biggest financial fraud trial in years of an ex-Swiss banker has drawn so much of public interest that the hearings are being held in a theater hall, a popular concert performance venue in Zurich. The ex-CEO of Raiffeisen Bank, Pierin Vincenz, not only fraudulently invested millions of bank money in companies owned by him, but spent over $210,000 (Rs 1.6 Cr) in strip clubs, charging it to company account as business expenses.

Another instance of a CEO outrageous conduct!

Few last words

Just because several high flyers are being imprisoned, it is not good enough to desist the greedy from cheating you and me.

Even now, individuals behind white-collar crimes are going scot-free, with most of the times the penalties being levied on the artificial legal entities – the business organisations.

Unless the recalcitrants are named and shamed, and the enforcement agencies get more honest and nimbler footed, the world is unlikely to be freed of the growing disease of fleecing the banking system and the common man, by a few selfish souls.

About the Author: Robin Banerjee is the Chairman of Nucleon Research Pvt Ltd, a global clinical research company. Earlier, he served as the Managing Director of Caprihans India Ltd. Robin has authored 3 bestselling business nonfiction books: (i) Who Cheats and How; (ii) Who Blunders and How; and (iii) Corporate Frauds: Bigger, Broader, Bolder.

Source: Economic Times (ETCFO.com)

February 22, 2022 0 comment

Articles

Independent Directors’ Independence: Why, When How & What?

by Robin Banerjee February 11, 2022

written by Robin Banerjee

Many readers of this article would love to become an Independent Director – it is respectful, professionally fulfilling, and moderately financially rewarding. Some of you who are already one, may be advocating that the risks are not worth it; while many must be enjoying the stint.

Whatever may be your experience so far, each one of you would be having some view on this institution of Independent Directors (IDs) – either positive or negative, with several harbouring notions of shades of grey.

The recent episode of ‘all’ the IDs resigning by firing off a scorching letter to the regulators, citing corporate governance issues, have shaken the ID-class. This incidence took place in power solutions provider PTC India’s, subsidiary company – PTC India Financial Services (PFS), an NBFC meant for infrastructure funding.

WHY IDs resign?

The corporate corridors are debating as to why this strange phenomenon of all the three IDs of a company i.e., PFS, resigning, making their letters available in the public domain?

In running a company, there could be disagreements. That’s normal. The IDs, by the very nature of their appointment, needs to bring a semblance of balance in the Board. By staying inside the system, it’s easier to change things. But a resignation obviously is a symbol of protest, if not a revolt..

Should the IDs be whistle blowers, complaining about the ills of the company or should they set things, right? I feel they should be doing the later task of getting the good governance back on track.

The inside stories of PFS could be different forcing IDs to resign en-masse. Time will only reveal why the IDs behaved the way they did in this instance.

WHEN can IDs do something?

Post the Satyam scam, IDs are treated as the governance guardians. Being “independent”, they are supposed to bring objectivity and rationality in the key decision-making processes

In reality, does it happen that way?

There are good boards, and not so good boards. In the latter variety of cases – and there are quite a few of them – the chairperson or the promoter, usually call the shots. In many instances, the boards are made up of the so called ‘old boys club’, where the ‘yes-persons’ are encouraged to fill up the board positions. And if this so, when will IDs do anything to improve things?.

HOW should the IDs play?

When a board is structured or new members added (especially IDs), it is natural to expect that the new entrants would have been in sync with the psyche and vision of the chairperson.

The ID positions are usually hand-picked and not appointed through any formal process of interviews etc, though the companies act would like it to be so – through the nomination and remunerations committee.

Real life evidences do not show that very objective methods are followed for appointing IDs.

IDs are supposed to advise the Chairperson, the board and the management team in general, on good governance, bring in functional expertise and enhance the quality of board strategy. Board-room turmoil and ego problems are not uncommon.

For instance, the board room fights in case of Tata-Mistry fallout in Tata Sons and promoter tumult in Yes Bank, have already become folklores of value destructions.

Board skirmishes generally result in its members either resigning or being asked to do so.

A fine balancing act the IDs need to play. See the greater benefit, advice what is good for the company and keep aside personal agendas. Persons with high EQ (emotional quotient – ability to deal with others), are able to manage the board room turmoil better – and believe in me, most boards go through rough patches..

WHAT’s the way out?

The institution of IDs has been created through a legal framework, to protect the rights of the minority shareholders, and help to practise good governance.

The problem is – the IDs mostly meets once a quarter, perhaps for a few hours only.

How can the IDs even get to know in detail, what is going on inside the company? How will they know whether any fraud is taking place, or any stake-holder interests are getting compromised? And this is the biggest problem.

What can be done? After all, it is the ethos of the promoter or the chairperson, which leads an organisation to the path of principled management.

A board could be filled with top names of the business or management community, but that does not entail, all is well inside. Think, of the Kingfisher airlines. It once had the who’s who in its board including the tennis great Vijay Amritraj and an ex-SEBI chairman; and the outcome is well known – the company going belly up within a decade of its formation, and fraud seems to be the proximate cause!

Tailpiece

Management of businesses is a complex process. More so, governing it through principled means. If the mind-set of the top boss is ethical, chances are that good governance would prevail.

But, if it’s the other way round, where short-term benefits overshadow the long-term vision of the top echelon, the institution of IDs will hardly be able to make much difference.

A word of advice – as a general member of the public or a minority shareholder, please go by your smell-tests – to sniff for any possible red flags in the company behaviour. It is not easy to figure this out as an outsider. But should you be able to do so, then stay away from the company – irrespective of big names in the ID list. If there is smoke, usually there is fire!

Source: Economic Times (ETCFO.com)

February 11, 2022 0 comment

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