| I have been poring over this Thing for seven hours. Being generous, with the provided definitions, a microscope and a lot of time and patience, the inexorable details of this self-referential, multi-dimensional retelling of GAAP can be pieced together. I am looking at a six page flow chart/outline (in four colors) with dozens of minute gradients, adjustments and categories of revenue and EBITDA. (Half the GX accounting department has probably been institutionalized in the course of creating of this Thing.) And granted, maybe it has to be this way because (1) It is absolutely dictated by the extremely complex structure whereby GX can be thought of as essentially the corporate general partner of 20? 50? 100? partnerships/joint ventures primarily for the pass through of tax benefits, and (2) God forbid anything should be released to the public in writing that deviates one iota from the minutia of SEC filings. Perhaps it is not the function of the earnings statement to say anything intelligible, plain speaking being the province of the CC. That being said, GX takes hands down the Gobbly Gook Award for Human Communications. The comments on this board reflect this. This is a far more intelligent group than most, but the best we can collectively come up with is "it may mean this", "it seems to say that", and those comments are directed at only one or another small piece or particular paragraph and not the big picture. We are certainly lacking a forest, but in addition to trees we have birds, flowers, chipmunks, junked cars, amoebas and a few kitchen sinks. My point is this: reading this Thing is literally like interpreting an abstract painting. No analyst covering GX, no one on this board, no one anywhere in the world outside of possibly a few people in GX has, or could possibly have, a grasp of what is going on here. I note that GX is up slightly in after hours trading (although I think that too will pass tomorrow). I conjecture that is because the only thing tangible that mere mortals can pull out of this Thing is "Consensus analyst loss estimates were exceeded". Consider that the stock price is being bandied about by a consensus of analysts who have no real idea what this Thing means. For people with doubts or questions about GX, this only sows the seeds of greater confusion and increases the doubts and questions. In the dollars and cents world of Wall Street, do you make your case by holding up an abstract painting? I think this is a PR failure on an entirely different level from the run-of-the-mill daily PR failures noted by Fez. Instead of telling its story, GX is leaving it up to a bunch of twenty-something analysts and reporters to subjectively interpret their abstract painting. I don't understand how that could possibly be a wise thing to do.............................. Okay, so the Thing is unintelligible. I did not recollect having this much trouble with prior earnings releases so I went back and looked at the last few. After all, this cockeyed, crazy accounting wasn't invented this quarter. My recollection was correct, the prior releases were models of clarity compared to this, even with the bizarre accounting conventions. Why? Because Mr. Casey very clearly cut through the bullshit and explained what was important. That was definitely not done here. Now you have to ask yourself why he chose to do this because these things are very, very carefully thought out and done with conscious purpose. Maybe it's just more of the same GX philosophy of letting the numbers speak for themselves in the long term and meanwhile let God sort it out. But it smells to me suspiciously like legal protectionism. Bear in mind this is merely a suspicion that could be entirely wrong. In the last releases, Casey offered considerable commentary, but here he mumbles a few generalities and basically says nothing. Now why would he have legal concerns? Well, you have sons of bitches like Milberg et. al, sniffing around, but those vultures are de rigeur with a declining stock price and the lawsuits I've read about only involved the IPO- probably not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. And what could Mr. Casey possibly say in 2Q01 that would affect a lawsuit concerning a 98 IPO? It is only my subjective take on this, but I have to ask myself the somewhat ominous question as to what possible looming legal matter requires an upgrade of legally protective weasel-wording? Why become lawsuit sensitive now? It would be very unfortunate if at this point in time legal concerns prevent Mr. Casey from communicating to the Street what this company is all about at a time when ignorance and confusion about this company are absolutely rampant among investors, journalists, analysts and just about everybody else. I hope he does a better job in the CC than GX did with this Thing. |
