<font color=purple>TheStreetCom & CNCShort Hedge Funds turn purple about Gary Wendt's reported
" Secret Strategy To Barbecue CNC Shorts ".
Hear all about it here ( complete with
CONSECO "ominous" [ but old ] falling graphs ):
We do not know what action ( if any ), these " threatening
shorts " will take, but they are a fearsome bunch and
for sure they will do " something ". Stick around for the gory details as they evolve:
Wendt against Gimme-gimme-Credit-Kathy and Colin, the Devine,
TA
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thestreet.com
Conseco Details Debt Restructuring
in Closed Meeting
By Peter Eavis
Senior Writer
9/25/00 6:29 PM ET
Conseco (CNC:NYSE - news), the troubled insurer and
lender, may have shared important information about its recent
debt restructuring with a small number of Wall Street analysts
at a closed meeting in New York on Monday.
The Securities and
Exchange Commission
recently approved a rule to
clamp down on companies
that share significant, or
so-called material, information
with hand-picked recipients
instead of the wider public.
Conseco may have fallen afoul
of that rule by giving the
analysts in attendance a presentation that contains detailed
analyses of its debt position as well as projections of future
cash flows. Hardly any of the information in the 18-page
booklet, obtained by TheStreet.com, is in a press release
about the $2.8 billion debt restructuring that was issued to the
public Friday evening.
Conseco, of Carmel, Ind., didn't return calls seeking comment,
and the SEC declined to comment on the matter, saying it
doesn't speak on company-specific issues.
Fifth Avenue
Along with other Conseco staff, Gary Wendt, the ex-General
Electric executive who pocketed $45 million for joining
Conseco in June as CEO, met with several analysts in a
building on New York's Fifth Avenue.
An analyst for a New York-based hedge fund says he was
initially told by Conseco early Monday that the company
wasn't holding a conference call or a meeting about the debt
restructuring. The investor, whose fund has sold Conseco's
shares short, then heard chatter that a meeting was being
held. He then called back the company's investor relations
department, which told the investor that there in fact was a
get-together, but it was reserved for analysts who had
requested an audience with Wendt.
The investor asked to attend, but he says he was denied
access. He says he asked the company whether the meeting
might create the potential for selective disclosure. The investor
says the IR person replied that it wouldn't, because there was
no intention to disclose anything material. The person taking
calls at Conseco's IR department couldn't comment on
whether someone in her department had said these things.
Sharp Decline
Conseco's fall from late '90s heights
Source: BigCharts
The analysts' presentation gave the company's projections for
a range of cash flows, in some cases as far out as 2004.
Such numbers are critical for investors trying to gauge the
viability of Conseco, which would almost certainly have
defaulted Friday had it not been for a decision by its main
banks, Bank of America (BAC:NYSE - news) and Chase
(CMB:NYSE - news), to extend $571 million of loans.
The analysts' presentation wasn't on the company's Web site
or issued through an SEC filing as of 3:15 p.m. EDT Monday.
'Frustrating'
Kathy Shanley, a corporate bond analyst at Wilmette,
Ill.-based Gimme Credit, says that the company should've
held a publicly accessible conference call instead of a private
analysts meeting. "With all the focus on selective disclosure, I
find Conseco's behavior very frustrating," Shanley says.
"Especially when they are so busy complaining people are
spreading misleading information about them, you would think
they'd want to get their story out directly to the widest
possible audience." Conseco last month put out a release
complaining that short-sellers, who stand to profit from
declines in stock prices, were spreading negative information.
And not all analysts made it into the meeting Monday.
Staffers from the office of Colin Devine, an insurance analyst
at Salomon Smith Barney who has frequently questioned
Conseco, say they didn't get notification about the meeting.
When they, too, heard chatter that a meeting might be taking
place, the Salomon staff members called the company
Monday morning, but they also were told it was only for
analysts who had requested a meeting with Wendt.
Devine, who was excluded from a Conseco conference call
with handpicked analysts in July, is out of the country at the
moment, but an associate could have gone in his place.
What's more, TheStreet.com, after learning about the
meeting, asked Conseco if it could attend, but was also told
that it was for analysts. However, a reporter from Bloomberg
was allowed access to the meeting.
Conseco's stock slipped $1, or 10.5%, to $8.50 Monday. The
company's shares are down two-thirds from their 52-week
high. |
