Went to the annual meeting yesterday. Took 8 minutes, a new record. Last year was 8 minutes 14 seconds.
Spoke with Tom Buns, VP-Finance. Several comments.
1. The SC13G filed by Lazard Freres was an error. They own no stock in CORC.
2. DFA and Fidelity are long term holders of the stock. There are many other institutional holders with smaller positions.
3. He confirmed his exercize of options for 6,000 shares earlier this year. He held the shares, and is a buyer of the stock, believing it is undervalued.
4. 27,000 shares have been purchased of the 200,000 announced. All open market, so far. Some large holders were approached, but declined to sell. Personal opinion is that we may have something of a floor under the stock here.
5. The stock buyback is part of the strategy from the Investment Bank that was hired last year. The program isn't necessarily complete with the IB, but doesn't appear to have anything exciting happening at the moment.
6. No more tax loss carryforwards.
7. The float is officially 1.2 million shares, but is effectively much smaller due to long term holders who aren't motivated to sell.
Also spoke with Werner Neuman, the president. Actually he walked over and introduced himself to me with no provocation. I was worried for a minute that he saw me stick an extra bagel in my pocket. :^)
I was curious about the peso effect on earnings. He assured me that he prefers stability. Only a decline vs. the Dollar to offset whatever inflation Mexico is currently suffering.
My point was that since the collapse in early '95 the Peso has shown relative strength against the dollar when inflation differences are factored in. My belief is that it may be a normal base building pattern after an overshoot on the downside, during the devaluation. Sooner or later we will see more downside, but those things are impossible to predict. He said they get a short term boost from Peso weakness, but would prefer to avoid the turmoil.
I think that a drop would help the share price, but then I don't have a plant full of employees in Juarez that suffer personally when it happens.
So nothing dramatic, but the mood was upbeat.
Dwight |
