Most Memorable Earnings Call
What is the most memorable earnings call you have come across?
I remember one from Enron where the CEO insulted an analyst in response to a question about its cash flows.
JPM has some good ones as well given the temperament of Jamie Dimon.
Cliffs Natural Resources from a few years back...
http://www.businessinsider.com/ruby-tuesday-conference-call-wall-street…
Ruby Tuesday:
Operator: "Our next question comes from Buddy Fox with Geneva Roth Holding Corporation."
Buddy Fox: "I just have one question. Do you think your revenues are negatively impacted by Harambe's death and if yes, do you have any plans to mitigate it?"
JJ Buettgen: "Excuse me, can you repeat your question please? Impacted by what?"
Fox: "By Harambe's death and if yes, do you have plans to mitigate it?"
Buettgen: "I am sorry. I don't know we have a bad connection. I couldn't quite hear the question."
Operator: "He has lost connection."
Almost spit my coffee out at work
Operator: We will now take a question from Bruce Wayne with Wayne Enterprises. Please go ahead.
Bruce Wayne – Wayne Enterprises – Analyst: Hello? Hello there.
Lars Bethuelsen – Archer Limited – SVP, M&A and IR: Hello, Bruce. We can hear you.
Bruce Wayne – Wayne Enterprises – Analyst: Hi, there. This is Bruce Wayne. I have a question for you guys. So I was wondering, given your financial situation, if you guys would be willing to invest in some technology I’m developing.
Christoph Bausch – Archer Limited – CFO: I think we will still find money if we find the right technology to invest in. I think we have a very good, on the Oil Tools side of the business, internal R&D team and so the investment is — should also be looked upon as just attracting talented engineers to continue that run.
Bruce Wayne – Wayne Enterprises – Analyst: Do you feel that you have engineers that can work my specifications, because I’m facing super-villains, so I need specific technical expertise.
Christoph Bausch – Archer Limited – CFO: I’m a little bit — there’s a big echo on the line. I’m sorry, can you repeat the question?
Bruce Wayne – Wayne Enterprises – Analyst: No, what it is is that a lot of my technology was damaged. I was obviously recently in battles with Bane, the Joker, so I just want to know if you guys can invest in some technology I’m developing.
Christoph Bausch – Archer Limited – CFO: Okay, Bruce, we are currently investing currently in technology in Oil Tools and in Wireline. We have various technologies where we’ve invested over a couple of years and we will continue to do so going forward. Bertrand, can you move on to the next caller, please?
Safe to say Elon’s clown show this week can be added to this list
December 2007, SLM (Sallie Mae) Corporation
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB119808375673239767
https://www.wsj.com/documents/transcript-slm-20071219.pdf
Bill Cavalier - - Analyst Bill Cavalier from cct (inaudible). Can you talk a little bit about the pass-through market? Clearly, there is pretty much no appetite for student loan paper at this point. What are you being told about when you think there will be a market for your pass-through notes so that we can start to (MULTIPLE SPEAKERS).
Al Lord - SLM Corporation - Chairman, CEO You're talking about our securitizations, I assume. We have not done as much as we would like to do. We'd like to do all of our current production and actually liquidate even some of our inventory. But we've done a securitization this month, we did a securitization in several preceding months. They have been maybe 60, 70% of what we wanted to do. My own view, and this is where I usually get in trouble, but my own view is that that market, that along with a lot of other markets, has shut down for the year 2007 until people take a look at their 12/31 balance sheets and figure what they're doing. So -- but I don't have the bottom line answer to your question.
Bill Cavalier - - Analyst But, clearly you have been talking to the arranging banks, and they must be telling you something.
Al Lord - SLM Corporation - Chairman, CEO I'm not sure what you're talking about. I've been talking to whom?
Bill Cavalier - - Analyst When you do a securitization, right, you have a bank that arranges -- that actually does the arranging, right, you have an arranging bank. Somebody must be telling you something about what the market is looking like, what their expectations are for next year (MULTIPLE SPEAKERS). We're trying to put together projections here, Al. We're trying to figure out what your stock is going to be worth, and you have got to give us some guidance, you've got to give us some numbers. I don't even see a margin number here for the stuff that you've done. Can you give us some handle on what your stock is worth?
Al Lord - SLM Corporation - Chairman, CEO You should give Steve a call.
Bill Cavalier - - Analyst But, you're the CEO. You're the guy who just took over the Company.
Al Lord - SLM Corporation - Chairman, CEO Yes, that's exactly right, I'm the CEO. You should give Steve a call. Next question.
Later
Al Lord - SLM Corporation - Chairman, CEO I failed to mention, I don't I missed it in my notes -- look, I'm going to put myself in front of you folks in January, in mid-January in New York, and I would really like to use that occasion to get into more specificity with respect to a different -- any returns that may differ from what we have tried to achieve in the past and more specific plans. As I said, I have been in this seat for three days, I wanted to get to you guys. I have a long history of dealing with shareholders openly. I have been very much under wraps for the last nine months and I wanted to get before you today. And so when I stand before you in January, I will be prepared to take all of your questions and I would suggest maybe you get there early because I can assure, you will be going through a metal detector.
Later
Operator (OPERATOR INSTRUCTIONS).
Al Lord - SLM Corporation - Chairman, CEO How (inaudible) is this? Steve, let's go. There's no questions, let's get the (expletive) out of here.
Steve McGarry - SLM Corporation - IR Hillary, if there are no more questions, we will end the call. Thank you everybody for tuning in, and if you do have follow-up questions, please feel free to call myself or Joe Fisher. Thank you.
Al Lord - SLM Corporation - Chairman, CEO Good bye, thank you.
Operator This concludes your SLM Corporation shareholders conference call. You may now disconnect.
Operator Your next question comes from Charles [Naberg] of Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.
Charles Naberg - Morgan Stanley - Analyst Hi, guys. Nice quarter. Had a quick question on Lanigan. How is that progressing? Is it still on time for the middle of this year –
or this coming year, excuse me, middle of ‘08? And can you remind me about what the size of that addition is going to be?
Bill Doyle - Potash Corporation of Saskatchewan Inc. - President and CEO Yes Charlie, to answer your question, what I would tell you is that Lanigan is 1.5 million tons. It’s on budget and on time for next
year. You know, essentially the big piece there is the mill. So we see that progressing according to plans. You know, I read your
first entree this week into the potash world. First I would say welcome to the fertilizer world and I did have just a couple comments,
Charlie, just because I never have a problem with anyone’s call, you make whatever call you want, but some of the factual
information in your report was a little bit suspect and I would say the – you know, the comment about Potash Corporation
abandoning our discipline and I don’t know what the line was, something about us being out for pizza or doughnuts or – it was
cute, but if you follow the history of the company, you’ve got the same management team for the last 20 years and if you check
back and do a little research on us, you’ll find that we have always matched supply to demand and it’s not how you – how much
capacity you have, it’s how you operate that capacity, Charlie. And the other thing I would say is that you know, you referred
to Potash mining as being high fixed cost business. Potash mining is not a high fixed cost business. You know, we can lay people
off and shut down the operations. We’ve done that for years and years when the time required it.
Unlike our phosphate business, which is a high fixed cost business, because you’ve got to keep that operation hot, so-to-speak.
You’ve got sulfuric acid plans, you’ve got to keep your water pumping capability in the mine site. You just really can’t shut that
down. So, there is a difference there that we would be happy to try and explain to you in the future. Our earnings being highly
dependent on biofuels, three quarters of the new demand growth in our business is food demand. We’ve tried to talk about
that at every stage and what I would really suggest to you, I think you know, you covered a little bit on the supply side. You
didn’t talk at all about the demand end. And I would say go out, visit India, pick any five cities, China, any five cities, and you’ll
see the demand for food and it’s a very, very real issue. You know, the other comment about consumers banking inventory before the Spring season of 2008, that’s just impossible. Just isn’t inventory out there and everybody is hand to mouth at this
time.
So I would say you know, overall less than a distinguished effort but the good news is that there is nothing but up side
for you for the next go round.
The casino guys can be great. Steve Wynn ranting about politics and grisly old Sheldon Adelson. Tesla is a joke.
Big earnings call pet peeve is when these sell-side guys jump onto the call from another call to ask a question and then the question they ask was literally just asked like 2 minutes before. Very annoying how much sell-side cares about "showing face" and asking a question on every call. Like my analyst gets pissed as hell when they don't take his question. "Did you call in 60 minutes before the call starts and press for a question?" Like ridiculous the stuff we do to try to get first question on the call.
Or when the company has a normal or even a bad quarter and they all get on and are like "great quarter guys" l
Also hate when they ask questions about super minute details. "I know you were planning to build a billboard at one of your hotel properties that could bring in 20k of revenue per year, can you update us on the timing of that"
Are you kidding dude you can't think of any questions that matter more than the timing of 0.01% of annual revenue. Like are you really modeling in a freakin billboard gtfo.
Sorry for rant. I had to get my earnings call frustrations out.