It’s called nouveau grunge and, as soon as high schools re-opened during the pandemic, teenagers brought the look mainstream. It’s not the only 30 year-old trend to return. The 90s model of predicting corporate fraud is making a resurgence too. The M-Score, a fraud prediction method devised by Daniel Beneish, a professor at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business is still highly accurate and is economically viable for investors to use. That’s according to a paper to be published in The Accounting Review.

“I have long known from my experience consulting with Arthur Andersen — for whom my model detected Enron before the debacle — and other public accounting firms, that litigation concerns relating to false positives — firms incorrectly flagged as having fraudulent financial statements — created an unwillingness by auditors’ general counsel to use fraud prediction models in practice,” Beneish said.“My efforts back then to improve the M-Score in the context of auditing failed because I could not increase the model’s success rate without increasing the number of false positives. It seems that the new models cannot either.”

Press release: https://www.newswise.com/articles/kelley-professor-s-m-score-model-remains-most-viable-means-of-predicting-corporate-fraud?ta=home

In the push to counter “the great resignation” with greater employee retention, Essex Bay Capital has made a growth equity investment in Divvy Engagement Solutions. Divvy is aprovider of digital employee engagement solutions. The software platform helps employers reduce turnover and improve culture. The investment will allow Divvy to expand its leadership team and build-out its resources in product development, customer support, and sales.

“Divvy has built a robust platform that is well-positioned for growth,” said Franklin Foster, Partner at Essex Bay Capital. “There is a pressing need for tools that improve employee retention and company culture, particularly in remote work environments and during a period of high employee turnover. We are excited to be partnering with Casey and Rick to build a must-have solution in today’s employee engagement market.” 

Press release: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/essex-bay-capital-announces-investment-in-employee-engagement-software-platform-divvy-engagement-solutions-301486883.html

Today Creative Realities, Inc. and Reflect Systems finalized their merger that they first disclosed in November 2021. The combined company will now operate as the Creative Realities, Inc.

The two digital signage companies announced that they had obtained their first joint customer a few weeks ago. The national retail project now boasts the largest, scalable end-to-end offering of digital signage on the market, the press release claims.

“The opportunity we had to fuse with a company known for its culture, client-centricity, CMS-savvy and strong relationships with the OEM community was more than an example of business compatibility,” said Rick Mills, CEO of the combined organization. “This merger was a deliberate, strategic vision to drive the next phase of digital signage innovation and deliver to the marketplace a united stack of services, offerings and expertise not seen before from a single entity in quite this way.”

Press release: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/creative-realities-inc-and-reflect-systems-finalize-merger-expand-end-to-end-offering-and-verticals-served-301485533.html

Finopotamus, an online resource providing in-depth technology coverage to credit unions, has opened nominations for its 2022 Tekkie Awards.

“Our reporting reflects the resilience of the credit union industry and its continuous ability to innovate and grow in these trying times. We’re excited to see this year’s entries,” said Finopotamus co-founder John San Filippo. “It’s going to be hard to top the submissions we received last year, but somehow, I think credit unions are up to the task. We’re especially enthusiastic about our first Technologist of the Year award.”

Press release: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/nominations-open-for-the-finopotamus-2022-tekkie-awards-301481543.html

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Kate Baggott is a former Managing Editor of B2BNN. Her technology and business journalism has appeared in the Technology Review, the Globe and Mail, Canada Computes, the Vancouver Sun and the Bay Street Bull. She is the author of the short story collections Love from Planet Wine Cooler and Dry Stories. Find links to recent articles by following her on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-baggott-9a0306/

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