In October 2000, a friend of Jim Chanos suggested that he read an article in The Texas Wall Street Journal, a regional edition, about accounting practices at large energy trading firms. The piece pointed out that many of these firms, including Enron, employed the “gain-on-sale” accounting method which allowed them to estimate the future profitability of a trade, calculate its present value and...

Essar Steel, the company that has given nothing but grief to shareholders since 1992, has finally been cleared for delisting, despite angry protests by its shareholders. In the run up to delisting, the promoters’ anti-investor actions have seen their shareholding increase from 34% to a massive 87%. This led to a skewed delisting process that ensured a discovered price of a low Rs48, although...

I have been a regular reader of your magazine MoneyLIFE and have been impressed by the number of issues you have taken up on behalf of us small investors.  I have been educating myself on financial matters and make informed choices on all my investments.

Some three years ago, my husband and I invested in one ULIP policy and one unit-linked pension plan from ICICI Prudential. We have never...