Carson Block of Muddy Waters laid into Singapore-based commodities trading group Olam International at Monday’s Sohn conference in London. Such is the way of his shorting.

The thrust of his argument was that there are troubling irregularities in Olam’s accounts and that the company has taken on excessive leverage.

But Block also pointed to Olam’s acquisition of NZ Farming Systems Uruguay, noting that latter had recently published an annual report with the words “fudge this” next to one of the line items. The suggestion was that Olam has not been particularly wise or scrupulous in picking acquisition targets. Read more