Analysis done at Smails’ pace

R. G. H. Smails was a pioneer. I first met him in the fall of 1960 when he put his retirement on hold, and returned to the faculty of the business school at Queens University to teach accounting and finance to the school’s inaugural MBA class. My cohorts and I were the beneficiaries of his return. His analytical skills were on par with Graham and Dodds; he was a good teacher to boot.

Obstensibly, he was there to teach us finance and accounting, and at that he excelled. He used the financial statements to capture the essence of a good company, good or bad, and then, used the same statements to measure its value. That was where the number crunching lessons ended and the business education began, as he would use the numbers to build a narrative telling the story of issues facing management, and the company’s strengths, and vulnerabilities.

His attention to details, and the incorporation of large amounts of financial data stood out. He did not believe that boiling performance down to a few parameters made any sense. He made it clear the public corporation is a complex system made up of interlocking pieces, and so needs to be analyzed as such.

Smail’s pace taught us that methodical and deliberate wins the race.