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Re: ValueInvestorToday post# 28750

Tuesday, 04/05/2011 10:24:14 AM

Tuesday, April 05, 2011 10:24:14 AM

Post# of 34471
Perhaps you have heard of Peter Lynch? He invested in a company called ACLN Limited that was a fraud, and the first company delisted from the NYSE in about 30 years. Here's the link:

http://money.cnn.com/2003/01/23/funds/lynch/index.htm

Quoted from about 2/3 down the article:
"But many of us feel we were sold a bill of goods in the past five years, hustled by analysts, banks, CEOs and others who basically cashed out while we bought in. I ask Lynch if he can possibly understand that frustration -- if the master himself had ever found that he was stuck with (sorry, Aggie) a dog of an investment.

'I had a New York Stock Exchange company just this past year that literally went to zero and was delisted. It had no debt, a very good balance sheet, a 20-year record. Everything looked fine -- it had $100 million in cash on its books -- then, all of a sudden, bam!' (Only one company fits that profile: Belgium-based ACLN Limited, a shipper and seller of used cars from Europe to Africa whose stock climbed as high as $50 in 2001, then collapsed after that $100 million in cash could not be found, ACLN's chairman disappeared and the SEC filed fraud charges against the company and top executives.)

'Despite my due diligence, I don't think I learned much from that experience,' Lynch says. 'I mean, you just have to say to yourself that maybe once in a long while you're going to have these things where in the end the company lied. I think in my lifetime of analyzing two or three companies a day for 30 years, sometimes more, I've been seriously lied to maybe 10 times.' "

So there you have it -- meets all your criteria:
1. A famous (some would say legendary) investor, on par with Buffet.
2. Bought a company that was delisted following public accusation of fraud.
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