The pendulum swings both in both directions, GE is now regarded as a brooding genius?
Let it be known that I have gradually worked my way back to about 70% of my former position. I've quit trading and just let new shares accumulate. So I am strongly back on board the MHR ship.
The recent comments are overly smug and overlook the historical record. In fact, I think a lot of people flushed MHR down the toilet a year ago, or contemplated doing so, thanks to GE's inept management. Without going back through the posts or detailed historical record (wouldn't serve any purpose), here's a quick half-dozen bozo moves off the top of my head that GE made:
1. piling on hundreds of millions of dollars of debt over 45 consecutive quarters of losses
2. firing the financial auditor and not completing the annual report
3. having to suspend payment on the preferreds
4. Issuing a secondary when the stock was in the $7's that closed in the mid $4's
5. Presiding over consecutive non-meetings for shareholders (I think the SEC finally required that he do so)
6. getting personal margin calls (on 2 occasions?) that required that he unload a goodly portion of his shares in the $2's and $3's.
I'm sure a brief review of the record would reveal another half-dozen managerial indiscretions, not the least of which include self-aggrandizement (e.g., leasing a plane on behalf of MHR from his own airplane leasing corp) and obtuse transparency. Some of these issues are usually lethal: suspending dividends, firing an auditor...
Does anybody consider this good governance? Does transparent trustworthy management count for anything to those who stayed long? Most investors, including those on this thread, would look at the events above and sell their shares. There are strong precedents supporting the cockroach theory.
Maybe the leopard changed his spots. No more botched audits, missed reporting deadlines, gutting shareholders with questionable fund-raising exercises, and -most of all- he's reduced debt and increased production. Ok, he's done all that so now I'm back on board. I believe in 9 out of 10 cases, unloading the stock under such circumstances would prove to have been the right move, and moving back in equally correct.
Still don't trust GE but am not longer buying or selling....just waiting on the takeout....or the next secondary. |
