Revealing Uncomfortable Truths about Leanna Orr

According to the media coverage about Alberta Investment Management Corp, it would be easy to think that Albertans’ public retirement investments are at risk. The CEO of AIMCO, Kevin Uebelein sent a letter to the media personnel that eventually caught the attention of the media. Kevin Uebelein in a straightforward tone spoke about his company’s performance and proved the scandalous allegations against the company as wrong and baseless. The media reported on a volatility-related investment strategy that the company managed that resulted in a significant loss. This occurred since market volatility dramatically increased.

He stated, “Markets behaved in a manner never-before-seen and the result was a very unfortunate loss. Media reporting has dramatically overstated the extent of the losses. Realized and unrealized losses to date are approximately $2.1 billion of the $118.8 billion of assets we manage on behalf of our clients. A final picture is expected to emerge in June when AIMCo delivers its next quarterly report.”

Leanna Orr, an institutional investor reporter broke out witty, harsh and sarcastic reporting about the company. The story was written in a New York-based online publication for institutional investors. The story was full of bias allegations and lack objectivity, the reporter alleged that it was “amateurish” trading that blew up AIMCo’s volatility trade strategy. She asserted that the company met a financial crisis as investors were involved with forgery and impracticable attitude that led to the dramatic crash of the company. Leanna Orr in her detailed reporting criticized the company by stating that the capped-uncapped strategy is amateurish. Without knowing the specifics of AIMCo’s positions, Ms Orr pointed out towards inefficiency and maladministration of the company. Her reports lacked a hierarchy of accuracy and reliability. The information and statistics provided in the report required verification. Furthermore, her opinion about the company and CEO seemed biased and inappropriate. 

The troubling story of Ms Orr tarnished the reputation of AIMCO. Consequently, they lost creditability in the market.  Expressing their sheer dissatisfaction over the biased and untruthful reporting, the company’s consultant observed that anybody with experience in options and volatility trading understand risks, and project risk management strategies. Any company may encounter risk factors. Such events may happen frequently. Moreover, President and CEO Kevin Uebelein is a qualified investor. As such he knows and understand the ongoing crisis and has taken initiatives to avoid further loss.

Inaccurate financial reporting of Leanna Orr jeopardized the company’s survival and created hurdles in establishing shareholder confidence. Considering Ms Orr’s unsound story, the investors think that it will take time to restore trust in AIMCo. The company has lost $4-BILLION money and it became difficult to bounce back.

 The Financial Investigating Reporting Of Institutional Investor Leanna Orr

Leanna Orr is an award-winning financial journalist and editor for Institutional Investor. The financial journalist is Canadian by background and residing in New York City since 2011. She earned her Master’s degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, then she joined (ai) CIO three years after its launch. She transforms it from a promising upstart into profitable financial publishing. 

Her work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Bloomberg View, Barron’s, Vice, the Dallas Morning News, London Evening Standard, and academic studies. Working as a senior writer, editor and director of investor content, Leanna Orr mostly focuses on reporting research stories, arranging interviews and transcribing comments of experts. Moreover, her financial reports lack comparative data. It is seen that Leanna covers single-column reports, which are less informative than multi-column reports. The reports does not include comparative data leaving it for the viewers to interpret and to make the calculation. Many of her investigative reports about financial companies lack reliable, and accurate facts since she does not obtain information from any media investigation sources or meet other investigative personnel to get the authentic information.

List of Leanna Orr Articles

 Leanna Orr covers many very important issues regarding hedge funds, institutional investing, private equity, hedge funds, alternative/smart beta, portfolio construction, risk management, and behavioral finance. Some other issues include diversity issues in finance; corporate governance; retirement/pension policy and fundraising.

Leanna covered AIMCo’s volatility trade strategy. Another important article was about the Rockefeller University investment chief who has a successful track record of making concentrated bets and taking risks on new talent. Leanna wrote about Carnegie Corp.’s Next Chief Investment Officer. Another article discussed that stakeholders learned about the now-halted allegations against Kevin Ulrich in the press.

Serious Flaws in Leanna Orr’s Financial Investigation

Financial Investigation requires clear objectives and systematic original reporting. In her financial reports, the experts observed the collection of research based on fake news and other forms of misinformation, including fake Twitter images, and rumours obtained through Google and various social media. The articles of Leanna provided misleading, and deceptive information used to make a decision or take action. Using inaccurate information, call into question the credibility of her sources. 

Leanna fails to empower the readers, allowing them to anticipate how the information might be used and what questions the reader might have about the issue or event. By reading her reports, the readers feel baffled. Since the process of writing her investigation report does not clarify a reader’s thinking they fail to uncover additional questions that could provide new insight into a case. For instance, her financial report covers the company’s existing issues, or controversy about the company and management, and their policies, without taking assistance from law enforcement agencies. 

Moreover, the news media states that the investigative reports of Leanna Orr are biased along with satire language that fails to catch the attention of readers. The information contained in the investigation report involves unnecessary details and excessive company internal news that can get the company into trouble.  Her investigative journalism does not use public records and public data. This establishes that her investigation reports are untimely, biased and unfair.

Kip McDaniel, Editor-in-Chief stated that when he asked Leanna to write a follow-up to the June issue’s “Missing Women of Asset Management, Leanna reacted in a ridiculous and witty behaviour saying she don’t want us to become the industry scold. They have a severe argument about the issue. But she displayed her resolve to write on the topic. According to the Editor-in-Chief, the report seemed controversial, the issue focused on the problem that might trigger the market forces to react negatively. Since they have a contentious relationship with this segment of the asset management industry and it might ruin their reputation.

According to the sources of Institutional Investor, due to contentious  reporting of  deputy editor Leanna Orr, the money manager of hedge fund send a cease-and-desist letter to Institutional Investor to avoid publishing the report that will adversely affect the reputation of Marto capital, founded by Katina Stefanova. To stop the publication of the article, the lawyers of Marto capital also got involved. The cease-and-desist letter stated that ‘Ms. Stefanova has determined that she will no longer cooperate or deal directly with Ms. Orr. Moreover, ‘Ms. Stefanova will not respond to Ms. Orr in any future engagements due to her unethical and illegal media reporting.

The spokesman of Institutional Investor has declared that Leanna Orr, deputy editor has demonstrated a hedonistic behavior by leaving the magazine as she is becoming director of allocator content at Pageant Media.

The Key elements that could make Leanna Orr’s Reporting authentic and genuine

According to the American press Institute, there are essential news and reporting values that journalists typically consider to make coverage choices that appeal to readers and create authentic reports. An event should be stimulating for the audience. Such events become closer to the community as they read them. The conflict or issue in the report should not involve any conspiracy or disagreement or prejudices against the company or individual.  Relevancy and predictability of the events make good stories that are attention-grabbing for the audience.

The financial investigation should be carried out with the facilitation of criminal investigation to trace the criminal activity in question. Competences in financial investigations are often shared amongst different state authorities (e.g. law enforcement or the judiciary) at different stages of the procedure. A financial intelligence unit further plays a significant role in disseminating significant financial intelligence information. To produce authentic reports, the financial investigator should ensure the effectiveness of financial investigations taken from authentic and competent authorities such as access to data through banks, financial institutions, special investigative powers that undercover operations, secret observation and take legal action through the assistance of law enforcement authorities. Ethics and integrity are the core characteristics of a competent journalist. He should observe fairness, objectivity and honesty in her reporting. While rushing to the scene of an ongoing event, their reports should exhibit integrity and biased free reporting.

Hence, journalists need to be equally clear about their role, both to themselves and the public. Journalist is not aloof from society, they are citizens and patriots. They need to build a relationship with their audience based on values, insight, judgment, authority, courage, professionalism, and commitment. Professional integrity is keystone of a journalist’s credibility in their field of journalism.