Barry Minkow: Self-Made Millionaire to Bankruptcy

Overall, there were three “red flags” E&Y was not aware of during the audit. First, they neglected the 500% net income increase from 1999-2001. This should have raised awareness because revenues only increased by 5% during that same period. Second, the internal auditors were denied access to some of the corporate ledgers. E&Y should have seen this as being one of the largest red flags. Third, the audit team failed to properly investigate employee complaints.

At an early age, Barry Minkow was introduced to the carpet cleaning industry by his mother who worked part time as a telephone solicitor for a small carpet cleaning company. This insight of the industry allowed Minkow to understand that the carpet cleaning industry was one which had very few barriers to entry, no licensing requirements, and required only a small amount of capital to enter. Also, because of these few barriers to entry, the industry has historically attracted a larger number of faulty startups in comparison to other industries. At 16 years old, Minkow started his carpet cleaning company under the name of ZZZZ Best Company. Right away he had a difficult time with customer

Joe emerged his business by perusing his desire to run a business on his own. Together Joe and Larry took the risk and began Bannes-Shaughnessy Inc. in 1972 (Katz, 2011). Despite their prior experience and low amount of capital they began with, within five years they had received their first million dollar contract, proving their existence. From here on out their firm grew, so did their success, and in turn were helping the community. Joe was compassionate and his work and business reflected that. Their families were benefiting from their success as well as their own lives. They were perusing their dreams, and once Joe became the sole owner, he was able to take the business to the next level. It is as if he was beginning the growth stage again within his own company, he could now continue on focusing on the expansion and diversification of his

Zumiez Inc. history started off with the owner of the business wanting to do anything he could do to give back to his community. When Zumiez was first created their target market was in action sports retailing, when they really started making more money they started giving back in an even bigger way to 13 charity organizations in Snohomish County, Washington by purchasing jackets, flannels shirts and blankets to give away to those who couldn’t afford it. Up until that point Zumiez was a private company until their launch in the spring of 2005. By the time we hit 2012 Zumiez had already donated over 180,000 items to over 180 organizations in 21 states helping more than 60,000 men, women, and children. Tom’s philosophy of business and life has been there motto since day one. “We help our employees to become successful, which makes the company successful. This in turn allows us to use that success to help others and to develop our employees into community leaders on issues that matter to them”. As Tom always says, “it’s about the leverage- creating it and using it for the benefit of others, and in the process, of ourselves”

D’rita Robinson, Founder of Chatty Guest. First in family to go to college. Pursing a couple of career paths decided to embark. Ashlie Davis, Founder of Smash Shoes. Looked for ways to solve problems. Problem solving knack became my motivation to start Smash Shoes. Reginald F. Lewis was considered the richest African-American man’s in the 1980’s. Lewis went to Harvard Law School and he graduate from there to. Some potential cause include the growing power of entrenched and larger companies,slowing population growth, and more recently, the financial crisis, which wiped out hundreds of thousands of businesses. That’s bad new for anyone who understands that entrepreneurship, with its power to create jobs, has profound effects on the economy. Small business provides about half of all private sector jobs in the U.S. , per the Small Business Administration. The Kauffman Foundation's 2015 startup index shows dramatic changes in the composition of new entrepreneurship since 1996-new business owners are now 40% Asian,Black and Latino, compared to 23% two decades ago. It turns out to be African American Entrepreneurs are more likely to be “necessity-based”

Without a question the BOD should have placed a high degree of reliance on Andersen, which at the time was one of the most prestigious worldwide accounting firms. The auditors should have known the kind of accounting taking place in Enron. In my opinion, Andersen knew, at least to some extent, the company’s financial condition. However, Enron was already too deep under water that blowing the whistle so late would have created problems for Andersen as well. According to the case, on 02/05/01, Andersen held internal meeting during which it addressed the company’s accounting from and oversight of the LJM partnership. Andersen never discussed these concerns with the Audit and Compliance Committee. Although the BOD has its faults, it should have been able to rely on Andersen’s work.

Startup.com is a documentary film about govWorks.com, a start-up tech company that operated between May 1999 and December 2000. The company raised $60 million US dollars from various venture capitals and was thought to become a million-dollar business that will go public on the stock exchanges. Unfortunately, the company did not survive when the dot com bubble bursted. The company was founded by two best friends since high school, Kaleil Isaza Tuzman and Tom Herman. Their friendship also fell apart as the company came to an end. govWorks.com was acquired by a multinational corporation on New Year’s Day 2001 due to the company’s rapidly depleting cash flow and inability to get more funding.

1. There are numerous differences between performing a review and actual audit on the financial statements, but the major one is that the review does not contemplate obtaining an understanding of internal control structure. Also, a review does not assess control risk, tests of accounting records and responses to inquiries by obtaining corroborating evidence through inspection, observation or any other audit procedure. It can point out significant matters of the financial statements but does not provide assurance of their accuracy. The issue with ZZZZ Best case is that the auditors review was not sufficient enough to review any misstatements on the financial statements. Ernst & Whinney never questioned the internal control, reviewed

3. Freddie Mac was one of the government-sponsored enterprises, it delay to report its earnings report because of an accounting scandal that conduct it to restate earnings in November covering the years 2000 through 2002 which had understated them by $5billion. The company delayed making financial reports after 2002 and promised to release the 2003 earnings report by 30 June so it had time to rebuild its accounting systems. It promised to release 2003 earnings by June 30. Freddie Mac reported the earnings report had earned $4.89 billion last year down from $10.09 billion in 2002 and expected 2003 profit of $5.90 a share. Reflecting the consequences of the $5 billion restatement due to the management had ignored accounting rules to hide earnings

On Dec. 11, 2008, Bernard Lawrence Madoff confessed that his vaunted investment business was all "one big lie," a Ponzi scheme colossal in volume and scope that cost investors $65 billion. Overnight, Madoff became the new poster child for Wall Street gall, greed and

1. Ernst & Whinney never issued an audit opinion on financial statements of ZZZZ Best but did issue a review report on the company’s quarterly statements for the three months ended July 31, 1986. How does a review differ from an audit, particularly in terms of assurance implied by the auditor’s report?

Ernst and Whitney never issued an audit opinion on financial statements of ZZZZ Best but did issue a review report on the company’s quarterly statements for the three months ended July 31, 1986. How does a review differ from an audit, particularly in terms of the level of assurance implied by the auditor’s report?

Ernst & Whinney audit firm suffered tremendously from the backlash of ZZZZ Best’s case. One of the issues stemming from ZZZZ Best’s case is the difference between a review and an audit as evidence by civil suit filed by a California bank against the firm. The bank claimed that its decision to grant ZZZZ Best’s loan was based on the opinion of Ernst & Whinney review of ZZZZ Best’s financial statements period ending July 31, 1986. The case was ruled in favor of Ernst & Whinney as the audit firm had expressly stated in their report that it was not issuing an opinion and the bank should not have rely heavily on the review report. Also, ZZZZ Best was a public company at the time, a review of its

To make matters worse, when Andersen found problems in the financial statements, they didn’t make corrections due to a conflict of interest. The concern was that if Andersen brought these problems to light, Enron would walk away and cost Andersen millions of dollars in the long run. Andersen contemplated dropping Enron as a client, but did not follow through with it. Because the audit and consulting was done at the same firm, it clouded Andersen’s judgment. Andersen employees in Houston began shredding documents and therefore brought obstruction of justice charges that destroyed the firm.

WorldCom acquired Arthur Andersen as the independent external auditing for the company. As WorldCom grew after the merger with MCI, Andersen began to invoice less than they should have. The charges were defended as an opportunity to prolong business with WorldCom. (Kaplan and Kiron, 2007). This is an immediate red flag for a company. Where were the ethical practices of the independent auditor? If the auditor has no ethics, how can one possibly be assured that the company is performing its intended function appropriately? The board of directors should have immediately been informed of Andersen’s practices and made a decision to confront Andersen’s practices and possibly obtain new independent auditors.