1y ago

TD May Face US$2 Billion Money Laundering Fine, Third-Largest Ever: Analysts - Better Dwelling

betterdwelling.com

13 comments

I can't wait to pay for this in fees, fines and other charges.
They made over $10B in profit in 2023. Shouldn't be a problem.
- Cost of doing business. Still massive profits.
- Not quite so simple. Converting to USD:
  TD has a 5.37% dividend yield, a market cap of 134.46B, and $8.498B in profit.
  Doing the math, their earnings are 6.32% of capitalization. They have less than 1% slack in their earnings yield after dividends. That works out to about $1¼B per year in free cashflow. So a $2B fine is roughly 2 years of capital accumulation; a big setback for sure!
  
  Counterpoint: a very large fraction of the population is one unexpected bill away from insolvency. It doesn't seem unreasonable to impose a similar fear on corporations for actual criminal activity.
  Yes, that's me saying that a corporation breaking the law should have to legitimately consider closing it's doors. In some cases, forced closure should be part of the actual penalty.
A fine that doesn't hurt the bottom line of the company is just cost of business, I'm for people to see the inside of a solitary confinement cell
The punishment for money laundering is a fine? We've truly lost the plot.
$10.8 B profit in 2023, $17.2 B profit in 2022. $14 B profit in 2021.
Isn't there a law that says if a company is caught breaking the law you don't have to pay them?
- Hahahahahahah yeah right. Even if there was, they'd find a way around it.
If you want to make this stick, don't let them deduct it as a loss on their taxes and really don't let them pass it on as an increase in fees.
The latter is especially important, because if they raise it, the others will to, and they'll be, ah, making bank the next year.
You know what else would be nice? Criminally charging the people responsible.

13 comments