11-11-2004, 09:37 PM
Part of my job as an institutional broker is to bring senior management of companies to meet mutual fund / hedge fund managers who might already own the stock or are thinking about buying the stock.
I took the new CEO and head of Investor Relations of one of the companies we cover to visit a hedge fund client that already owned the stock.
It's a tech company has a ton of cash on hand equivalent to about 1/2 the value of the entire company -- which is almost unheard of. So it's really really cheap on that measure. But there has been some turmoil at the company. Various things have happened, but suffice to say, a lot of people don't have a lot of faith in the company which is why it's so cheap
The investor really wanted to talk about the cash and what they are going to do with it, the CEO mentioned that they'll probably be making an acquisition, and the investor was shocked (think of the scene in Fight Club about starting a family: "I'm a 30-year-old child, I don't think bringing another life into this world is a good idea".)
This company hasn't shown they can run their own business, let alone someone else's. The investor flipped out. He told the CEO it was as sign the CEO had no faith in his business, that he was negligent in his duties, that he was incompetant, and that there was no reason to own the stock. The CEO had no response. He couldn't defend his position at all. It only made him look worse. He just said, "I'll take it under advisement; let's move on", and the investor was like, "no, fuck this, there's no reason to talk to you."
This is a guy that owns over a million shares. Boom! That's it Mr. CEO, this meeting couldn't have gone worse for you.
Oh, and it's the first time this CEO has met with investors, and "the street" is known to share information at the speed of lightning, and so this CEO is going to have a reputation of being an idiot.
It was hilarious. Most of these meetings are so prim and proper, and I've never heard of one that was almost a knockdown dragout fight.
I took the new CEO and head of Investor Relations of one of the companies we cover to visit a hedge fund client that already owned the stock.
It's a tech company has a ton of cash on hand equivalent to about 1/2 the value of the entire company -- which is almost unheard of. So it's really really cheap on that measure. But there has been some turmoil at the company. Various things have happened, but suffice to say, a lot of people don't have a lot of faith in the company which is why it's so cheap
The investor really wanted to talk about the cash and what they are going to do with it, the CEO mentioned that they'll probably be making an acquisition, and the investor was shocked (think of the scene in Fight Club about starting a family: "I'm a 30-year-old child, I don't think bringing another life into this world is a good idea".)
This company hasn't shown they can run their own business, let alone someone else's. The investor flipped out. He told the CEO it was as sign the CEO had no faith in his business, that he was negligent in his duties, that he was incompetant, and that there was no reason to own the stock. The CEO had no response. He couldn't defend his position at all. It only made him look worse. He just said, "I'll take it under advisement; let's move on", and the investor was like, "no, fuck this, there's no reason to talk to you."
This is a guy that owns over a million shares. Boom! That's it Mr. CEO, this meeting couldn't have gone worse for you.
Oh, and it's the first time this CEO has met with investors, and "the street" is known to share information at the speed of lightning, and so this CEO is going to have a reputation of being an idiot.
It was hilarious. Most of these meetings are so prim and proper, and I've never heard of one that was almost a knockdown dragout fight.