The New York Press Club said today that I have won its 2016 award for consumer reporting on the Internet for my stories about cybersecurity problems at The Vanguard Group.
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Society of the Silurians 2016 Excellence in Journalism Award
The Society of the Silurians said today that I have won the 2016 Excellence in Journalism Award for Commentary and Editorials for my columns for TheStreet.com. From the judges:
“Watch what Wall Street does, not what it says,” Antilla enjoins her readers and, heeding her own counsel, she does just that in a string of columns, built on solid reporting and trenchant analysis, that expose the duplicitous practices unscrupulous stockbrokers employ to intentionally mislead and, ultimately, fleece their clients.
Excellence in Financial Journalism Award
The New York State Society of CPAs said today that I have won the 2016 Excellence in Financial Journalism Award for my columns for TheStreet.com.
From the judges:
Susan Antilla used her solid reporting and analytical skills in “Wall Street Has a Unique Way of ‘Protecting’ Small Investors,” as she exposed Wall Street for its efforts to avoid change that could possibly improve access to stockbroker records. Throughout her research, she also called out the securities industry for its empty arguments that tougher regulations would force brokers to drop smaller investors as customers.
First place in 2016 Connecticut Press Club Communications Contest
The Connecticut Press Club said today that I have won first place in the “Specialty Articles — Business” category in its 2016 Communications Contest for my stories about cybersecurity weaknesses at the mutual fund company The Vanguard Group.
You can read the stories, published on TheStreet.com, here and here.
SABEW Award for Commentary
I’m honored to have won the “Best in Business” award in the Digital Commentary category from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) for my columns for TheStreet.com in 2015.
From the judges:
Susan Antilla’s columns on underhanded Wall Street practices were a reality check about the institutional forces working against the interests of small investors at a time when more and more “regular” people navigate their own retirement planning. In another column, she explained how gains in workplace gender equity can be illusory, and how a double standard in the behavior of men and women remains.
You can see the terrific work of SABEW winners in the other categories here.
TheStreet.com submitted four of my columns from 2015 to SABEW:
Wall Street Has a Unique Way of Protecting Small Investors
Wall Street makes it hard to dig up dirt on your broker or brokerage firm
Ellen Pao’s case against Kleiner Perkins has Porn Star Talk, High Stakes for Women
Like Anita Hill vs Clarence Thomas, Ellen Pao Lost Kleiner Perkins Gender Fight but Women Gained
Antilla columns get Azbee award for commentary
The American Society of Business Press Editors (ASBPE) said tonight that my series of columns, “Policing the Brokers,” had won first place in the original Web commentary category. Here are links to the columns:
‘Unaccountable Bureaucracy’ Wins High Marks From Public
SEC Boasts Record Wins But Powerful Execs Remain At Large
Unfazed By Finra Charges, Seniors Still Swoon for David Lerner Pitch
Antilla 2015 Awards
Earlier this month, the New York press club The Society of the Silurians said I’d won its “Excellence in Journalism” award for my online columns for TheStreet.com.
From the judges: “In these searing columns, Antilla highlights the anti-consumer sentiment that has taken hold of significant portions of the Republican Party as it attempts to distance agencies such as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.”
My stories also have been entered into the national competition for The National Federation of Press Women, which said this week that I’d won first place in two of its “at-large” contests, which include 27 states that don’t have direct affiliations with NFPW. One winning entry was for my columns for TheStreet about the fleecing of senior citizens by stock brokers. A second winning entry was in the feature category, for my article in The New York Times about sex discrimination at Sterling Jewelers, the biggest retail jewelry operation in the United States. The winners in the “at large” categories have been entered into NFPW’s national competition.
Case “closed” on accounting problems at RCS Capital, but were problems fixed?
It was only three months ago that RCS Capital Corp. told shareholders in a quarterly report that it was in the process of remediating “several significant deficiencies” in its internal control over financial reporting. Since then, shareholders have been told that all is well — sort of. But the company has not specifically told shareholders that the deficiencies have been addressed and solved.
RCS is the holding company for a collection of brokerage firms and other financial companies. One of them, J.P. Turner Associates, was purchased by RCS this year, and has a horrific history of customer complaints and regulatory action against executives at the top of the company. Here’s my story about Turner.
Along with its bad judgment in picking acquisition targets, RCS also has the baggage of having employed Brian S. Block as its CFO for most of 2013. Block is the guy who resigned under a cloud on Oct. 29 as CFO of American Realty Capital Properties Corp., which announced that he and another senior financial executive had intentionally covered up an accounting error. Both RCS and American Realty Capital Properties are controlled by real-estate mogul Nicholas Schorsch.
On that news, shares of both RCS and American Realty Capital Properties plunged.
Since then, RCS has said publicly that it hired a law firm and forensic accounting firm to examine the books for the first nine months of 2013. That was a period when Block was signing off on the financials. Michael Weil, CEO of RCS, said in a conference call with analysts on Nov. 13 “We consider the question of RCS Capital’s accounting integrity as closed.” But the forensic probe was limited. For example, it didn’t include an examination of emails.
RCS first flagged its accounting deficiencies in its March 31, 2014 quarterly report. It subsequently mentioned the deficiencies in filings on May 6 and May 29. Among other problems, it noted in the May 29 filing that its auditors had been given “multiple versions” of the company’s books and records.
In other words, seven months before Block resigned in the American Realty Capital Properties scandal, RCS was noting significant problems in its accounting during the period Block was its CFO. The company of course could have brought that up in its analyst call last week, and if it was all fixed, management could have said so.
Instead, RCS carved out a nine-month period, authorized a limited investigation, and declared that the issue was closed. To really close it, though, RCS needs to tell what it did about the deficiencies it mapped out in that May 29 filing, and why investors can be assured that problems like that won’t happen again.
RCS, by the way, declined to comment when I sent a detailed list of questions to its outside PR firm. Here’s the story I wrote about it for TheStreet.