Found Deceased AR - John Glasgow, 45, Little Rock, 28 January 2008

Is the following summary true?

1987 – CDI is founded with the sole purpose of serving one customer- Dillards.

At some point Dillard’s makes an investment in CDI. They give CDI money to grow their business. In exchange Dillard’s gets 50% ownership. Now Dillard’s, as their half owner and main customer, can call the shots with them, but still have them operate outside their corporate structure.

The officers at this point each own several percent of the business. This share is useless b/c it’s illiquid. No one wants to buys 10% of a small business with one main customer. The use in these small shares is to incentivize the management team to grow the company.

They succeed. They build multiple Dillards and get other customers. They’re very profitable. They value on paper grows.

2007 – William Clark dies. His family inherits his shares.

Later 2007 – Dillards goes to acquire the rest of the shares. The executive team’s illiquid shares are about to become with worth up to a few million dollars. The executive team is about to get a windfall.

In doing its due diligence, Dillard’s accounting realizes CDI accounting has been aggressive. The ID show seems to suggest it’s debatable among accounting experts whether CDI was doing Enron-like tricks to make their numbers look good or whether Dillard’s was overly-conservative. This is understandable b/c Dillard’s probably invested in CDI in the beginning b/c it was more nimble and less stodgy and conservative. But it really comes to a head with Dillard’s accounting calling Mr. Glasgow an out-and-out thief. Dillard’s accounting tells him you’re basically and employee of Dillard’s who’s been stealing from your boss. Mr. Glasgow says you’re not our boss; you’re a stodgy company contracting with an aggressive small company you happen to own. It gets nastier from there.

Jan 28, 2008 – Mr. Glasgow mysteriously goes missing.

Early 2008 – With Glasgow gone, somehow Dillard’s gets over its problems. Maybe it was one bad apple who’s not with us anymore.

Aug 2008 (7 mo later) – The acquisition goes through. The management team all gets their money. Glasgow’s wife probably inherited his shares and received money.

John Glasgow’s death helped solve everyone’s problems. He was at the center of accusations that he was aggressively refuting. When he disappeared and couldn’t carry on refuting them, the acquisition went through. All his executive colleagues and his wife all benefit.

This does not say who did it. One or more the people standing to gain may have done it. He may have felt horrible guilt. He may have said he was living to build this thing that would provide for his family and help employees, vendors, and customers, and how he messed it up and was wroth more to everyone dead than alive. He could have gone into hiding, but I would expect him to resurface once the acquisition went through.

My guess is one of the shareholders got angry with him. He thought, you’re a thief and deserve to die. And unlike other crimes, your dying actually undoes the damage. This shareholder threatened him and arranged a meeting. Glasgow knew the guy might get violent, might publically condemn him, sue him, make a complaint against his CPA license, and turn him in to law enforcement. John probably didn’t think he would go so far as to commit premeditated murder.

This is just a wild guess. The same factors could have led to suicide. Also, I’m not sure his death is what made the acquisition go through. It’s odd, though, that it was in peril while was alight working his tail off to see it through, and then it went through months after he died.
 
Is the following summary true?

1987 – CDI is founded with the sole purpose of serving one customer- Dillards.

At some point Dillard’s makes an investment in CDI. They give CDI money to grow their business. In exchange Dillard’s gets 50% ownership. Now Dillard’s, as their half owner and main customer, can call the shots with them, but still have them operate outside their corporate structure.

The officers at this point each own several percent of the business. This share is useless b/c it’s illiquid. No one wants to buys 10% of a small business with one main customer. The use in these small shares is to incentivize the management team to grow the company.

They succeed. They build multiple Dillards and get other customers. They’re very profitable. They value on paper grows.

2007 – William Clark dies. His family inherits his shares.

Later 2007 – Dillards goes to acquire the rest of the shares. The executive team’s illiquid shares are about to become with worth up to a few million dollars. The executive team is about to get a windfall.

In doing its due diligence, Dillard’s accounting realizes CDI accounting has been aggressive. The ID show seems to suggest it’s debatable among accounting experts whether CDI was doing Enron-like tricks to make their numbers look good or whether Dillard’s was overly-conservative. This is understandable b/c Dillard’s probably invested in CDI in the beginning b/c it was more nimble and less stodgy and conservative. But it really comes to a head with Dillard’s accounting calling Mr. Glasgow an out-and-out thief. Dillard’s accounting tells him you’re basically and employee of Dillard’s who’s been stealing from your boss. Mr. Glasgow says you’re not our boss; you’re a stodgy company contracting with an aggressive small company you happen to own. It gets nastier from there.

Jan 28, 2008 – Mr. Glasgow mysteriously goes missing.

Early 2008 – With Glasgow gone, somehow Dillard’s gets over its problems. Maybe it was one bad apple who’s not with us anymore.

Aug 2008 (7 mo later) – The acquisition goes through. The management team all gets their money. Glasgow’s wife probably inherited his shares and received money.

John Glasgow’s death helped solve everyone’s problems. He was at the center of accusations that he was aggressively refuting. When he disappeared and couldn’t carry on refuting them, the acquisition went through. All his executive colleagues and his wife all benefit.

This does not say who did it. One or more the people standing to gain may have done it. He may have felt horrible guilt. He may have said he was living to build this thing that would provide for his family and help employees, vendors, and customers, and how he messed it up and was wroth more to everyone dead than alive. He could have gone into hiding, but I would expect him to resurface once the acquisition went through.

My guess is one of the shareholders got angry with him. He thought, you’re a thief and deserve to die. And unlike other crimes, your dying actually undoes the damage. This shareholder threatened him and arranged a meeting. Glasgow knew the guy might get violent, might publically condemn him, sue him, make a complaint against his CPA license, and turn him in to law enforcement. John probably didn’t think he would go so far as to commit premeditated murder.

This is just a wild guess. The same factors could have led to suicide. Also, I’m not sure his death is what made the acquisition go through. It’s odd, though, that it was in peril while was alight working his tail off to see it through, and then it went through months after he died.

I'm not sure exactly what happened to JG, but I don't think he was doing anything crooked. Accounting for a construction business is fairly straight forward and Dillards was auditing CDI, and ultimately found nothing to blame on Glasgow. They announced a shortfall in earnings around the time of his disappearance, claiming CDI had overcharged Dillards. Ultimately Dillards had to admit they had under-recorded the amount they were paying to CDI to build stores and thus, over reported their own earnings. http://upstart.bizjournals.com/exec...Arkansas-Executive-Goes-Missing.html?page=all Virtually everyone vouches for Glasgows honesty, except Dillards Freeman. He even bugged his own phone because of threat, a crazy thing to do if you're guilty and receiving accusatory phone calls. To me it seems Dillards wanted to blame CDI for its own mismanagement. Dillards is a public company, and, I believe, CDI is (was) not. So they probably thought they could intimidate JG into taking the heat, saving the stock price of the public Dillards and shifting the burden to CDI, which loses no public value in doing so. Dillards sending out a hit man to silence JG seems a bit Hollywood, but stranger things have happened.
 
I'm not sure exactly what happened to JG, but I don't think he was doing anything crooked. Accounting for a construction business is fairly straight forward and Dillards was auditing CDI, and ultimately found nothing to blame on Glasgow. They announced a shortfall in earnings around the time of his disappearance, claiming CDI had overcharged Dillards. Ultimately Dillards had to admit they had under-recorded the amount they were paying to CDI to build stores and thus, over reported their own earnings. http://upstart.bizjournals.com/exec...Arkansas-Executive-Goes-Missing.html?page=all Virtually everyone vouches for Glasgows honesty, except Dillards Freeman. He even bugged his own phone because of threat, a crazy thing to do if you're guilty and receiving accusatory phone calls. To me it seems Dillards wanted to blame CDI for its own mismanagement. Dillards is a public company, and, I believe, CDI is (was) not. So they probably thought they could intimidate JG into taking the heat, saving the stock price of the public Dillards and shifting the burden to CDI, which loses no public value in doing so. Dillards sending out a hit man to silence JG seems a bit Hollywood, but stranger things have happened.

Thank you - this sums up the situation as I understand it.

Dillard's was trying to pressure CDI into saying that they had made an accounting error because Dillard's was going to have to restate their earnings (very bad), which was going to weaken their stock price and potentially allow investors a big enough stake in the company to take control of it and rid the board and executive team of Dillard family members. Investors at that time were very vocal about their perception that Dillard's was poorly managed and that corporate governance was weak.

The best way to avoid being acquired is to have a strong stock price.

Here are some links:

http://online.wsj.com/articles/SB122878841695490419
http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/art...-dillards-commitment-to-shareholders?page=all
http://www.prnewswire.com/news-rele...he-companys-public-stockholders-58629562.html
http://www3.gmiratings.com/home/2013/01/its-nice-to-be-a-dillard-at-dillards/
http://upstart.bizjournals.com/exec...Arkansas-Executive-Goes-Missing.html?page=all
http://nypost.com/2008/12/09/dillards-row-worsens/
 
Virtually everyone vouches for Glasgows honesty, except Dillards Freeman. He even bugged his own phone because of threat, a crazy thing to do if you're guilty and receiving accusatory phone calls. To me it seems Dillards wanted to blame CDI for its own mismanagement. Dillards is a public company, and, I believe, CDI is (was) not. So they probably thought they could intimidate JG into taking the heat, saving the stock price of the public Dillards and shifting the burden to CDI, which loses no public value in doing so. Dillards sending out a hit man to silence JG seems a bit Hollywood, but stranger things have happened.
I wonder how JG being out of the way helped them blame CDI. They still acquired CDI. I wonder if they got a better price b/c CDI's CFO was gone, and everyone was shocked. Or was it an agreement between someone at Dillards and someone at CDI that if JG died, they'd both blame him to save face with Dillards shareholders and then acquire CDI under the terms they would have agreed to anyone?

It sure looks like someone at Dillards (I doubt all of Dillards senior management conspired) may have murdered him. But it seems extreme and likely to backfire. In this scenario, the person at Dillards did some crooked accounting. He/she accuses JG of crooked accounting to cover it up. That makes sense so far. Then JG defends his accounting. Killing him seems to put the corrupt Dillards manager into more a law enforcement spotlight than he was before.

Maybe JG had proof positive that the Dillards manager/accountant had done some highly illegal accounting, maybe embezzlement that could carry a prison sentence. The crook agreed to meet JG in private to discuss it, maybe offering to capitulate and help JG and CDI by resigning but without going to jail. Instead the crook murdered JG at the meeting. Maybe JG told him at the meeting after all the criticism they'd subjected JG to, he wasn't going to do a backroom deal to sweep the crimes under the rug. The reason this scheme worked (in this guess) is JG was the only one with the proof of crooked accounting and the motive to bring it to LE. Most other people involved either didn't have proof of crooked Dillards accounting or didn't care b/c they were getting good money as Dillards managers or as owners of CDI about to be acquired. Kill JG, and the problem goes away.
 
I wonder how JG being out of the way helped them blame CDI. They still acquired CDI. I wonder if they got a better price b/c CDI's CFO was gone, and everyone was shocked. Or was it an agreement between someone at Dillards and someone at CDI that if JG died, they'd both blame him to save face with Dillards shareholders and then acquire CDI under the terms they would have agreed to anyone?

It sure looks like someone at Dillards (I doubt all of Dillards senior management conspired) may have murdered him. But it seems extreme and likely to backfire. In this scenario, the person at Dillards did some crooked accounting. He/she accuses JG of crooked accounting to cover it up. That makes sense so far. Then JG defends his accounting. Killing him seems to put the corrupt Dillards manager into more a law enforcement spotlight than he was before.

Maybe JG had proof positive that the Dillards manager/accountant had done some highly illegal accounting, maybe embezzlement that could carry a prison sentence. The crook agreed to meet JG in private to discuss it, maybe offering to capitulate and help JG and CDI by resigning but without going to jail. Instead the crook murdered JG at the meeting. Maybe JG told him at the meeting after all the criticism they'd subjected JG to, he wasn't going to do a backroom deal to sweep the crimes under the rug. The reason this scheme worked (in this guess) is JG was the only one with the proof of crooked accounting and the motive to bring it to LE. Most other people involved either didn't have proof of crooked Dillards accounting or didn't care b/c they were getting good money as Dillards managers or as owners of CDI about to be acquired. Kill JG, and the problem goes away.

This article from 2011 is very interesting: http://www.arkansasbusiness.com/art...fter-accounting-dispute-hires-kpmg-as-auditor

"Dillard's Inc. of Little Rock has fired its auditor, PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, over a dispute involving the retailer's plan to move its real estate into a subsidiary....Dillard's told the Securities & Exchange Commission last week that the two companies couldn't agree on when the tax benefit related to its new real estate investment trust should be recognized. The Internal Revenue Service agreed with Dillard's, which has since hired KPMG LLP....Dillard's had originally hired PWC in May 2009 after using Deloitte & Touche LLP for more than 20 years..."


I used to work for a Fortune 500 company and our executive team was not happy with our accounting firm because they wouldn't allow some of the same practices our competitor was using that were accepted by the same accounting firm, but a different city's office. There was talk of firing the firm, but people were too worried that it might be taken the wrong way. Dillard's has been through THREE of the four major accounting firms now. First, they fired Deloitte in 2009 (presumably after having to restate their earnings), then they fired PWC in 2011, and now they are with KPMG. I've never heard of any public company running through so many auditors in such a short period of time.
 
Greg Yarbrough @GregYarbrough

Roger Glasgow says "we have always suspected that foul play was invovled." #ARNews
 
Greg Yarbrough @GregYarbrough

Roger Glasgow "The remains consisted of a skull and had not been found and were probably scattered." #ARNews
 
Greg Yarbrough @GregYarbrough

Roger Glasgow "There was no evidence of trauma to the skull. He was found at the base of a cliff. It could have been an accident" #ARNews
 
Greg Yarbrough @GregYarbrough

"These past 7 years we've lived with this tragedy. Time has worn off some of the raw edges but this event has kinda reopened the wounds."
 
Glasgow feels it was foul play, but it will be up to LEO, to figure that part out. He doesn't know anything.
 
Question from media if JG was a hiker at Petit Jean, liked to hike but doesn't think he frequented the area.
 

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