max, I attended this year, as I did last year. Yes, financially, this company is in a different status now than last year. Things tight ? Yes. Things precarious ? I don't personally think so. Future look bright ? Yes, but I don't have the time nor inclination to offer them here. From consensus of my [well informed] broker, and numerous others, including even ABTX mgmnt...two major company-caused errors happened here that resulted in such a radically-different company in this past year. 1) Company, from the start, never had deep wall street backing in their business plan. By including Soros in their private placements, who it seems now hedged even better than he went long, and by not lining up 40%-60% institutional support early-on, they have always been an at-risk company in the world of professional BEAR RAIDS. Their grass-roots financing plan, for several of their early years (ie Thomas exercising options before he had to to raise acquisition & operational cash, which was to say TOOK LOANS OUT AT PERSONAL RISK FOR OPERATIONAL and M&A CASH), meant they didn't have a wall-street-based Investment Banker to "befriend" them on wall street. Company seems to be aware of this vulnerability now. Day late, dollar short. Pardon the pun. 2) Company made the strategic, and conscious decision, to accelerate their M&A speed from what the business plan called for. Hit critical mass 2 years early ($450MM annual sales)...but in so doing, again, created a visible vulnerability both on stock price issues and in-pocket cash flow. Add in ingredients like 22-yr worst ag cycle, international economic turmoil, and such, and the shorts simply picked a great candidate to to "perform surgery on". So be it. I guess I can give them feeble applause for doing what they do so well. Naww...nix that. No honor there. I prefer not to live in a country where bear raids and short attacks destroy companies. What a way to make a living. Would it be that these same shorts ever try to set up a company, or do a start-up, with some vision.
BTW - David Evans of Bloomberg fame was there in person...very obviously casting about for anyone to speak negatively about the company. When he could not get someone to speak negatively, he literally would go into an "I'm bored with you" look and walk away as soon as minimally polite to cast about for other fish. That was my take. I am being as honest and unbiased as I know how to be when I make that characterization. He did it to me personally. That was the take others I spoke with sensed as well.
This guy (Evans) is a sad commentary on a once-noble profession called "reporting", except to note that cynicism, agenda-based reporting, and "make the news instead of report the news" *are* the elements of much of our press these days. So be it. New paradigm we'll all have to learn to live with. At least I don't have to have this *attitude-based* reporting shoved down my throat in my morning newspaper, without some ability to respond via the internet. Curious sidenote - I spoke to two separate independent brokers who both told me Bloomberg terminals are, as we speak, being dumped out of thir offices in favor for other brands...not so much because of Evans, as much as their value is in question overall as a news source. But that's a whole different discussion for another thread.
Hey - max, maybe Evans will attack *your* favorite stock someday. We'll see how you like that. No, I don't wish it upon you, but you would be able to live the experience and see if, in fact, *your* company CREATED their destiny, or HAD IT CREATED FOR THEM. Salient difference.
He was in no way interested in taking notes or reporting on anything positive, IMHO, which was a shame, because the meeting, which lasted well over an hour, was blunt, both about good and bad. Let me repeat that again. Over an HOUR of news streaming from charts, speeches, and Q&A...and *nothing* positive shows up in Bloomberg's release ?
Come on. Let's be minimally intelligent here.
And IMHO - ABTX management made no attempts to dodge the bad news, and were willing to speak to anyone, formally and after the meeting (informally) about literally any issue. The essence of forthrightness, subject to legal restrictions that prevented discussion about certain details (class actions, etc).
That the company will, or will not survive, I can't even predict, since no many variables are outside of the company's control.
I would state categorically, though, that Evans is in my view, either 1) a true mouthpiece for some very active group w/ intent to destroy this company, or 2) uses Bloomberg to further a personal agenda that should have been left at the front door about 9 months ago. While I long suspected one, if not both views applied, I had opportunity to witness it first-hand, literally, based on attending the meeting and hearing w/ my own ears what he also heard...and then reading his first reporting of the event. WOW - how our notes must differ. He could have wrtten his article from the SEC filing a few days ago and saved himself the trip out.
Final point - Mr. Evans came up to me and asked if I had any comments I would make "on the record". I told him, politely, that I did not trust his intent and would prefer not to make comment.
Mr. Evans, you validated my explicit concern with your very first release. If "negative news" is all you felt obliged to report from this meeting, then my hunch was right all along. I am confident you are reading this or that drakes can assist in forwarding it to you.
c-man
P.S. I do not blindly follow ABTX management, nor agree with many of the things they did. They definitely made some errors, and screwed up in some significant ways. That said - they are still doing their best from what I can tell, and honorably so, to make this company perform beyond anyone's wildest dreams.
Sorry guys (longs and potential longs) - not a lot of "meat" from the meeting. In my view, Evans' continued attack, and assuming a BEAR RAID is on-going, have more impact on this company than anything ABTX can do or fail to do. If ABTX can, ever, get a handle on these two issues...the company itself has as much promise as it ever did. That's a bit surreal to me that a company's ability to succeed, or not, is so much out of their control. But that's the "story" I took away from the meeting. |
