"I am not sure it's useful to talk in abstract and would prefer if you (and others) gave concrete examples."
What prompted the thought was when I was listening to the most recent conference call with GES's CEO Paul Marciano and in replying to one of the later analyst questions he talked about the difficulty of finding the "new right size" for the business and the new pricing points. Talked about how they kept adjusting things because in his retail space (higher end/fashionable) things that used to work well weren't working as well and they were finding the new model, but then he said he felt they were getting there.... The numbers and trends don't look so good to me - it's likely priced into the stock - but as I listened I was just impressed with how he talked about the business - I thought I could tell he cared about it in more than the managerial sense, and liked the open-ness about the issues.
Insiders own a high % of the stock and he's a large holder, so he's not under as much pressure as other CEOs, but it was still a comment that kindof surprised me when I heard it. It's not something that you typically hear on a call. And his tone of voice gave me the impression that I kindof liked the guy and it was refreshing to hear a CEO talking this way. So all of that prompted the question: "As an investor, how much credit should I give the company when I hear something like this? Should I put any weight on it at all?"
I normally just read transcripts, but listening I felt gave me a little insight, but then I wondered if I was just deceiving myself if I gave the discussion any extra weight in my decision.
Anyhow, that was probably the genesis of the idea. I was simply contrasting what almost seemed a spontaneous musing about the business than with carefully crafted responses that often dominate calls. I also often hear almost adversarial responses from management when some analysts ask questions, and often don't like that - but like you say - they're not CEO's because they're polite, and their obvious response might be a sneer "you're just an analyst, you couldn't possibly understand enough to question my actions." |
