Financial Forensics: The Due Diligence Files

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

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⁠⁠⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠⁠

Genesis Global Capital 2023: intra-group crypto lending gap and counterparty concentration risk. If a parent company can erase a billion-dollar loss...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

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⁠⁠⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠⁠

Genesis Global Capital 2023: the largest institutional crypto lender in the world had a $1.1 billion hole in its balance sheet after Three Ar...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

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⁠⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠

One line of code, buried among millions of others, let a single trading account do something no other account on the e...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

Explore

⁠⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠

A piece of collateral is only worth what someone other than the borrower would actually pay for it. This is the GP/LP institutio...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

Explore

⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠

In September 2019, Purdue Pharma filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy under the weight of...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

Explore

⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠

How does a controlling equity holder use a subsidiary's Chapter 11 filing to extinguish personal mass tort liabilities, and why did th...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

Explore

⁠⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠⁠

Mallinckrodt promised $1.6 billion to the victims of the opioid crisis. It negotiated that settlement before it ever filed for...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

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⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠⁠

Mallinckrodt's opioid trust was owed $1.6 billion. It closed out that entire obligation with one final $250 million paymen...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

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⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠

Luckin Coffee 2020, Extended: the fraud is documented...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

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⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠

Luckin Coffee 2020, GP/LP Analysis: a market sig...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

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⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠

The GP/LP analysis...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

Explore

⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠

Millions of customers have trusted us through th...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

Explore

⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠

Toys R Us was still profitable at the store level in 2017. Every metric that measured whether the business worked sai...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

Explore

⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠

The GP/LP analysis of the Toys R Us leveraged...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

Explore

⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠

One individual, sitting on three sides of the same set of transactions for more than a decade: chief executive, controlling owner of t...

Picture the ending first. A company's chairman and largest creditor -- the same person -- uses debt he already owns as currency to buy back what's left of the company out of bankruptcy, over objections from everyone else it owes money to. Years later, that same company's estate sues him, alleging he spent the prior decade moving billions of dollars out of the business and into entities he personally controlled.

This is the financial autopsy of Sears Holdings -- once America's largest retailer, reduced over roughly two decades from thousands of stores to a...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

Explore

⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠

A federal appeals court once wrote that there was an "apparent irony" in its own ruling: the very financi...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

Explore

⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠

Three different courts. Two different states. Roughly four years. The same company tried the same basic legal maneuver thr...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

Explore

⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠

A hedge fund posts a 439% return through June. Six weeks later it sells its entire public book in a single o...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

Explore

⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠

Three numbers got called "the size of the fund" this year. Almost nobody asked which one they m...

This episode is part of Financial Forensics Labs — two shows, one forensic methodology: The Due Diligence Files traces how institutions collapse, The Signal Files traces how the good calls get made. Built from primary-record research by a 15-year capital markets professional.

Get to know the framework, the other show, and the tools built from it — all in one place.

Explore

⁠⁠Financial Forensics Labs — Forensic Finance Intelligence⁠

Why do delayed regulatory resolutions make long-tail insurance insolvencies exponentially larger? While balance sheet giants like General...

In 2009, Pennsylvania regulators placed Penn Treaty Network America into formal rehabilitation after identifying massive long-term care insurance underpricing. A 2012 court decision unexpectedly rejected the initial liquidation petition, allowing the impaired carrier to collect premiums for five additional years before its final $3 billion shortfall forced a historic 2017 liquidation.

This financial autopsy examines the mechanics of broken actuarial assumptions—lapse rates, investment yields, and claim duration—and how Penn Treaty’s insolvency triggered nationwide guaranty association assessments across the entire insurance industry.

🔴 Every corporate failure leaves behind a pattern — and every good decision leaves one too.

How can a multi-billion dollar liability sit disclosed in public filings for over a decade and still catch institutional markets off guard? Unlike cases involving undisclosed entities or hidden control relationships, GE Capital’s long-term care exposure was named and audited throughout. This GP and LP institutional analysis deconstructs the specific mechanical pattern of incremental actuarial smoothing on long-tail liabilities.

We contrast long-tail liability risk with active concealment risk (referencing the Valeant file), isolating how small, compliant multi-year assumption revisions can obscure compounding capital requirements.

We deliver an active due diligence framework for institutional allocators, re...

In January 2018, General Electric stunned public markets by taking a $9.5 billion pretax charge and committing $15 billion in capital to re-reserve a legacy long-term care (LTC) insurance block it had stopped writing a decade earlier. This financial autopsy deconstructs how three multi-decade actuarial assumptions—lapse rates, interest rate yields, and claim durations—failed simultaneously inside GE Capital's run-off reinsurance subsidiaries.

We trace how the 2004 Genworth IPO left GE holding the highest-risk legacy liabilities in run-off entities like Employers Reassurance Corporation and Union Fidelity Life.

Examine the mechanics of incremental assumption smoothing, where minor annu...

In early 2015, Valeant Pharmaceuticals reported that volume was driving earnings, yet internal quarterly data revealed that roughly 80% of growth stemmed from price increases. Shortly after peaking at a $90 billion market capitalization, Valeant’s stock collapsed by 97%. This financial autopsy dissects the mechanics of Valeant’s aggressive M&A roll-up model and the hidden distribution network that sustained it.

We trace how Valeant acquired existing drug portfolios, cut R&D spending, and implemented price hikes of over 500%. We uncover the role of Philidor Rx Services—a mail-order specialty pharmacy that Valeant secretly controlled through an undisclosed option...

Every part of Valeant’s aggressive pricing model was visible, but the mechanism making those prices collectible was concealed. This GP and LP institutional analysis deconstructs Valeant’s undisclosed control over Philidor Rx Services to evaluate related-party risk, channel concentration, and payer-evasion mechanics.

We analyze the ownership gap: holding an option to acquire a specialty pharmacy while describing it as an independent partner defeats investor scrutiny and distorts organic growth figures. We contrast this with the Autonomy case (EP154), distinguishing certified third-party misrepresentations from direct issuer control over an unrevealed distribution network.

We deli...

Eleven point one billion dollars changed hands for an enterprise software company, yet a massive share of its reported revenue was computer hardware sold at a loss and booked under a software license label. Thirteen months after the deal closed, Hewlett-Packard wrote off eight point eight billion dollars of what it had just paid. This financial forensics autopsy dissects HP's disastrous 2011 acquisition of Autonomy.

We trace the mechanical failure of M&A due diligence under compressed deal timelines. Discover how hardware loss-leaders, quarter-end channel stuffing through value-added resellers, and a long-standing auditor relationship passed undetected...

In a nine-figure acquisition, if the target's own auditor has certified its numbers for years, what exactly is the deal team independently verifying versus agreeing to trust a second time? This GP and LP institutional analysis deconstructs the structural reliance on certified financial statements during corporate acquisitions.

We contrast Autonomy's target accounting failure with the FIFA jurisdictional gap, isolating how a target’s long-standing, highly concentrated local audit relationship can stop functioning as an independent check and turn into a structural diligence vulnerability.

We deliver an active M&A due di...

Why did a private sports federation headquartered in Zurich, with no operations in the United States and no American shareholders, spend two decades exposed to American racketeering law? This GP and LP institutional analysis deconstructs the jurisdictional mechanism that allows domestic cross-border wire fraud statutes to reach global offshore networks.

Unlike the Cobalt file's beneficial ownership verification gap, FIFA’s vulnerability sat inside a technical dollar-denominated clearing routing path. We isolate the mechanical reality of international wire infrastructure: the moment an offshore payment touches a New York correspondent bank account for a fraction of a se...

The police did not wait for room service. They walked into a five-star hotel on the edge of a Swiss lake before sunrise, led six men out through a side entrance, and dismantled a 24-year private bribery economy worth well over one hundred fifty million dollars. This financial autopsy deconstructs the structural capture of soccer's global governing body.

We trace the mechanical pattern of how officials elected to run FIFA turned broadcasting rights, sponsorship contracts, and World Cup hosting votes into personal clearinghouses. The analysis isolates the complete absence of outside board seats or public market pricing...

Here is a contradiction almost nobody flags when a company touts a new joint venture as "world class": the press release describing the partners came out months, sometimes years, before anyone independently confirmed who those partners actually were. The Cobalt precedent demonstrates how a resource company can satisfy every formal compliance requirement while the critical verification step—confirming beneficial ownership—falls into a commercial blindspot.

🔴 Every corporate failure leaves behind a pattern.

FFL Tools runs a live deal through the same forensic questions behind every case in this feed —...

There is a registration address in Luanda that shows up on the incorporation papers of more than forty different companies, all of them eventually traced back to three of the same men. In 2010, an American oil company had already put its name on a partnership agreement with two of those companies, months before anyone outside Angola's own investigative press had connected the address to the men who assigned the deal in the first place. This financial autopsy deconstructs the structural collapse of Cobalt International Energy.

🔴 Every corporate failure leaves behind a pattern.

F...

There is a number every financial model built for this deal got right down to the decimal point, and a number that never appeared in any of those models at all. The first was the percentage of plant output already sold under long-term contract before construction began: close to ninety percent. The second was the count of documented armed attacks within twenty kilometers of the project site in the twenty-four months before the final investment decision was signed. That second number existed. It just wasn't in the model.

🔴 Every corporate failure leaves beh...

Twenty billion dollars of approved investment. Ninety percent of the plant's future output already sold, under contracts running into the next decade. And by the last week of April 2021, the number of company employees physically present on site was zero. This financial autopsy deconstructs the Cabo Delgado insurgency escalation and its direct collision with the multi-billion-dollar Rovuma Basin gas infrastructure development led by Anadarko and Total.

🔴 Every corporate failure leaves behind a pattern.

FFL Tools runs a live deal through the same forensic questions behind every case in this feed — 11 dimen...

Six weeks. That is how long it took for two separate research firms, working independently, to build two different cases against the same company using two different methods—one built on a revenue estimate, one built on a corporate registry—and for the market to reprice the stock twice before either case reached a regulator.

🔴 Every corporate failure leaves behind a pattern.

FFL Tools runs a live deal through the same forensic questions behind every case in this feed — 11 dimensions, 55 questions, calibrated to Real Estate, PE, Private Credit or VC — and returns a full Invest...

Hong Kong Stock Exchange, morning of July 8th, 2019. A trading halt hits one of the largest sportswear companies on the planet, mid-session, with no warning to retail shareholders. Somewhere in Manhattan, a research firm just pressed publish on a document built from something almost nobody bothers to check before buying a stock: the corporate registry filings of the company's own distributors.

🔴 Every corporate failure leaves behind a pattern.

FFL Tools runs a live deal through the same forensic questions behind every case in this feed — 11 dimensions, 55 questions, calibrated to Real Estate, PE, Private Credi...

A company can report an eighty-five percent collapse in its own shareholder equity, a loss of almost sixteen billion dollars in a single year, and its dollar bonds barely move on the news. Not because the market didn't notice. Because the market had already made a bet, months earlier, on who actually signs the check when a company like this can't pay—and that bet had nothing to do with the numbers in the filing.

🔴 Every corporate failure leaves behind a pattern.

FFL Tools runs a live deal through the same forensic quest...

Here is a question almost nobody on the buy side asks explicitly when pricing a bond from a large, state-linked issuer: has anyone actually seen the document that guarantees this, or are we all just agreeing to believe the same thing at the same time? In most cases there is no document.

🔴 Every corporate failure leaves behind a pattern.

FFL Tools runs a live deal through the same forensic questions behind every case in this feed — 11 dimensions, 55 questions, calibrated to Real Estate, PE, Private Credit or VC — and returns a full Investment Committee Memo, s...

An engineering company can report a growing pipeline of contracts, rising revenue, and healthy margins for years, and still not have the cash to make this month's payroll. Both things can be true at once, because the revenue on the books was never really a measure of what had been delivered or collected. It was a measure of what the company said it had already finished.

🔴 Every corporate failure leaves behind a pattern.

FFL Tools runs a live deal through the same forensic questions behind every case in this feed — 11 dimen...

Here is a question almost nobody asks when reviewing a long-term construction or engineering contract on a counterparty's balance sheet: who actually produced the completion percentage driving the reported profit, and what happens to their bonus if that percentage comes in lower next quarter.

🔴 Every corporate failure leaves behind a pattern.

FFL Tools runs a live deal through the same forensic questions behind every case in this feed — 11 dimensions, 55 questions, calibrated to Real Estate, PE, Private Credit or VC — and returns a full Investment Committee Memo, scored against 140 documented collapses.

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