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Locked on 07/19/2002 11:14:21 PM PDT by Admin Moderator, reason:
Flame war. |
Posted on 07/10/2002 11:04:03 AM PDT by SierraWasp
12:57PM Halliburton responds to Judicial Watch lawsuit (HAL) by Michael Baron Halliburton (HAL) is off 30 cents, or 2.1 percent, to $13.82, in midday action. The company is out with a press release responding to a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, a Washington, D.C.-based legal watchdog group. The suit alleges fraudulent accounting practices at Halliburton took place during the period when current vice president Dick Cheney served as its chairman and CEO. Halliburton called the claims in the suit, "untrue, unsupported, and unfounded." The company continued: "We are working diligently with the SEC to resolve its questions regarding the company's accounting procedures. Halliburton has always followed and will continue to follow guidelines established by the SEC and GAAP, General Accepted Accounting Principles."
"The vice president was aware of who owed us money, and he helped us collect it," Lesar told Newsweek. "We stand behind the accounting treatment."
In a cost plus contract which Larry has mentioned it is a moot point. In those contracts there are re-estimates and scheduled intervals for every phase for the entire life of the project. Those estimates ar go no go points. You and the client either agree to the adjusted budget or you do not. period. In "fixed costs" projects. The procedure is very much the same except that the original estimate is based on the quality of the proposal documents given to the bidder. The estimate can have a range of anywhere from plus/minus 5% up to 25%. Let's say the project is awarded at 1 billion +/- 25%. Once again production check estimates are scheduled and contingency funds are released as adjusted budgets. HOWEVER; during the course of the project there are many client changes that impact either engineering, procurement or construction and cause an unbudgeted cost to the company, For these matters Engineering change notices or field change notices are issued and signed off by the in house client reps as approved. These are NOT reconciled until the plant being built is commissioned and they often add up to millions of dollars. Those are legitimate receivables but are not incorporated into the individual project budgets but are booked as revenue to the company. There are some that the home office clients challenge but very few. Those change orders may not be actually paid for 2 years but they are approved and bookable revenue offset by Halliburton's having to pay the project personnel man-hours out of its own pocket.
The other fly in the ointment is that the scale of projects that Halliburton deals with are many times funded by governments that are very reluctant and sometimes unable to keep cash flow high enough to make some payment schedules so the change orders are booked as IOUs to keep the project budgets coherent. It is risky in one way in that Halliburton is actually short-term financing the project but the set those off with an agreement to take an equity position in the plant being built in case of non-payment.
I level out at around 28 and he kicks my ass every time.
Does Halliburton every take drilling proceeds or contracts as payment?
That having been said, perhaps you should stop attempting to sound as though you know anything at all about the SEC and the Market. You see, dear, since my husband has been in the Market ( and quite well known and respected ! ) for a very long time, it has been incombent upon me, to understand and know about this subject. Unlike you , who not only has NO " life experience " / working expierience / nor even, I assume , all that much book knowledge of this topic, I know, full well , just how the SEC opperates, how the Markets work / or don't.
Of course, you are allowed to make ill informed, uneducated statements here; however, they fail, on ALL acxcounts, under the light of scrutiny, by those who know about, what you only pretend to be expert on.
B-R-A-V-A !
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