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Gold/Mining/Energy : FLC Falcon Drilling -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: diana g who wrote (29)	2/26/1998 2:05:00 PM
From: Czechsinthemail	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 461

diana, In my experience IR varies a lot from one company to another. Some see their job largely as keeping a lid on things, while others seem more eager to get information on the company out to people. If the company is small and IR is handled by a company officer you are more likely to get reliable information than from someone who is simply passing it along. One thing that is almost always good to get is an investor information packet, including brokerage reports on the company and the latest 10-K and 10-Q reports. Sometimes you can get leads on selling by insiders or significant shareholders. It doesn't hurt to ask. You can also ask about market conditions; things like "Are you seeing pricing pressure?" or "Have there been any problems or delays in contract negotiations?" You can also get a lot by asking questions that simply inform you about their business. For example, "What percentage of your revenues comes from floating rigs, what percentage from jackups, and what percentage from shallow platforms? Have the percentages been changing? What percentage is U.S. and what percentage is international?" Here you may get some good information that clarifies your understanding of their business and how it may be changing or how it may be impacted by external changes. Follow-up questions can often get more. If you ask something like "Do you make as much profit on deep drilling projects as you do on shallow projects?" it invites follow-up questions like "What kinds of profit margins do you have and are they different for different segments of the business?" You can always ask if they expect to make significant announcements soon. Sometimes they will tell you sometimes not. When I talk to IR, I try to be friendly and curious, but also to keep asking questions. I also try to reward them for providing good information by thanking them and telling them how much I appreciate what a good job they've done in helping me to understand the company better. If they don't, I pass along my philosophical view that they are there to provide information not to restrict it. Often the important information may be non-verbal. Things like pauses or hesitations to answer a question that may alert you to something up even when they won't tell you that/what it is. When they are not generous with information, you have to learn it through detective work -- noticing the clues. Hope this helps, Baird