JWI19 said:
You really believe it took only 10 months to audit all 30 teams books?
It's not as if one person was doing it. He had a team of Forensic accountants.
From Levitt FEb 12, 2004: "The nature of this study was so comprehensive, so broad-reaching, so detailed and followed so closely on audits done over a period of years and additional audits required, that I know of no way of challenging these numbers -- and remember we are not talking about, if I say a margin of less than 1%, I am talking about 30 different clubs and if you took this in its totality, it would be down to a fraction of 1%. Certainly nothing material can be questioned in this; in my judgment. Nothing material. .....I think this is close to being unchallengeable as anything I have ever been associated with."
"Q. Mr. Levitt, does this surprise you at all that the numbers that seem to have turned out are exactly the numbers the League has been saying all along going into this; would you have expected this to be the case?
ARTHUR LEVITT: I guess I might have been surprised at the fact that we found a lower loss than the League had reported; that the League was quite conservative in their findings; that even with the somewhat lower loss, the results were as close to catastrophic as I have seen of a business of this size go. These are not giant enterprises nor are they terribly complicated. Businesses of this size cannot sustain losses of this magnitude and be viable."
"Q. The $273 million figure being bandied about, is that based on generally accepted accounted principles? I just need to know what exactly that represents?
LYNN TURNER:The URO is based upon trying to get all the collective revenues and all the collective expenses of the hockey operations regardless of where they are in the team or in the affiliated arena. So it is not a gap-based number.
For example, it doesn't include the debt costs that an owner will have to pay for in cash in terms of interest; doesn't include the cost of buildings and facilities, the depreciation, so this $273 million number in all likelihood, if it was on a pure-gap basis like a public company would have to report to its investors, would be significantly higher. "
The number including those other debts was determined to be $374 million.
The numbers are truthful as determined by the best in the business. A guy who is not going to just go along with what the NHL said but looked into every scrap of evidence and every piece of revenue.
And low and behold it has been nearly 8 months and the numbers STILL have not been challenged. That has got to tell you something.