Marcos: In addition to the companies whose management post to SI, there are lots of companies who read the threads on SI. One time, I was critical of a certain (unnamed) company in an SI posting. The _next_ day, the President and CEO of that company called me up to talk about my concerns. In that conversation, he indicated that he had distributed my comments to his senior managers.
I am sure that many CEO's monitor the SI threads and do not post to them. Most companies prefer to communicate through press releases. Sometimes, in smaller companies, the CEO or some other director handles all shareholder communicatons. In larger companies this is handled by a staff member.
I think that companies do not post for the following reasons:
- Companies are not allowed to give information to some share holders and not to others. The exception would be to "insiders" who are prevented from acting on preferential information. This is why many companies only release "key" information in press releases, and it is also why companies issue information outside of market hours. It is also why trading in a company is halted, pending clarification of a change in material fact, when it is clear by the trading that some people know of the news.
- The quality of the discussion in some of these news groups is absolutely terrible, and I can understand why some CEO's/Managers would not want to get involved. For intance, in one discussion group I was attacked and called an A** H*** for some comments I made about some changes that I thought could be made to a company. In other groups, much of the discussion seems to centre around banal (irrelevant) discussions about day-to-day (or minute-to-minute) action of the stock price (i.e., "The stock went from $6.50 to $7.25 today, then closed at $7.00 - does anyone know why support dried up at the end").
- Management does not have the time - often they are busy running the company.
Obviously it would be preferred if the management of companies would monitor SI and provide explanations and clarifications of some of the things that the company is doing, and to answer shareholder questions. However, I should point out that, in nearly every case where I, as a small-time shareholder, have tried to contact the management of a company through "traditional" means (telephone is really good), I have been able to reach either the CEO, a director of the company, or a senior manager.
The only case where I wasn't able to do this was Advanced Gravis, which had a management that was out to extract as much money from the company as they could - all at shareholder expense.
I think the telephone is the best way for a one-on-one exchange with a copmany - especially if you take lots of notes. You get a much better sense of what the managers are like (i.e., is the president dull-witted or on the bit), and it allows more information to be exchanged in a short period of time. Of course for communicating information to a large number of people, the Internet is great ...
Regards,
John Sladek |
