175: Jonathan Shapiro – Investigating and Exposing the Crafty Schemes of Public Companies

Jonathan Shapiro's a senior reporter at the Australian Financial Review. While he writes about a range of subjects from banking to hedge funds to private equity, he's renown for stories that uncover dishonesty and the crafty schemes of listed companies—for which, he's won several awards. Our conversation begins with Jonathan telling the story of Blue Sky Alternative, a fund manager that came unstuck following the release of a short sellers research report. From there, we roll into a very detailed discussion about about Jonathan's investigative work on Big Un. Without saying too much, Big was a video marketing company listed on the Australian stock market and a top performer in 2017. But as you'll soon hear, Jonathan discovered much of it was smoke in mirrors... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices