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...
lol rude or weird ceos are always shorts
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."
This is golden.
Almost spit my coffee out at work
haha amazing
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?
lmao these are hilarious, please keep them coming
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.
Man looks into the abyss
https://www.wsj.com/articles/al-lord-profited-when-college-tuition-rose…
David Einhorn's questions on a Herbalife call were deadly
http://www.businessinsider.com/david-einhorn-herbalife-2012-5
One memorable moment was when Best Buy CEO Hubert Joly, in a sad attempt to boost earnings, mentioned he would be buying a drone from Best Buy and that the other analysts should to.
Not particularly memorable by street standards, but memorable for me. I was on-site at a biotech client's office and we were listening in on the earnings call where they revealed they had catastrophically missed guidance and their stock dropped 60% during the call (and this was a ~$6B market cap company).
People were crying, all work ground to a halt, it was a mess. I imagine there were earnings calls during the GFC when the sky fell that had similar consequences, but this one was wild to experience.
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.
Jamie got a little heavy on the politics at the start but its funny how he said its sometimes an embarrassment being from US
Love it.
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.
Ah yes, this one is classic. "Are you sure hit STAR-1? Are you sure??"
At the same time all of the analysts KNOW that the companies literally choose which analysts they want to have, and in what order. If you didn't make it on the call it wasn't because your associate only dialed in 15 minutes early. I think the issue is this always coincides with a stressful period i.e. earnings
Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne in 2005 - Involving "Sith lords", CEO cocaine use, and open speculation on the CEO's sexuality.
In 2005, Overstock's stock was in trouble, and its CEO Patrick Byrne decided to hold a conference call to give his side on why the stock was in freefall. This was the result:
First (this is actually the most uninteresting part), Byrne has to explain why he is not money laundering for al-qaeda in response to a recent white paper accusation.
Kevin Ingram was a prominent fellow in the late 1990’s in Wall Street. He left Wall Street, started a dot com. I think it was crashing. He got caught attempting to sell Stinger missiles or obtain Stinger missiles for some Pakistani ISI agent, who turned out to be undercover feds. In fact, he agreed to work on obtaining a nuclear trigger for them. So he went to the pen for a few years. He’s out now and he’s basically a gopher for some of these folks...
And somebody, a politically connected investor with the hedge funds calls up the SEC or the DOJ and says hey, you know, “Listen I was just having breakfast with George and Laura and they sends their regards. And by the way, I know a guy on Wall Street who’s come across something you really need to take a look at.” And so then one of the hedge funds goes in, sends somebody in with this white paper and they try to get an investigation started. That’s how the basic system works...
And they turned that into a white paper that said Byrne is tied up Al-Qaeda and terrorism and money laundering and you ought to look at this guy...
Then, he gives a vaguely antisemitic tirade about a "miscreants ball" orchestrating a short position on his stock.
I’m calling this story and I’m going to tell you , The Miscreants Ball.
[snip]
I’m going to talk about, I’ll call it the Not Necessarily Miscreants’ Ball.
[snip]
And here’s the funny part. As this went on I started realizing that there was actually some more orchestration here being provided, by what I’m calling here is the Sith Lord or the mastermind. Now, can I tell you who that designated bottom feeder was who was supposed to end up with our company? Can I tell you? I can. But I’m not going to today. The Sith Lord is, can I tell you who that is? Well, I could tell you it’s a name that everybody on the phone, every single person on the phone would recognize this person’s name. He’s one of the master criminals from the 1980s, and he’s back in business. But I’m not going to. I’ll just call him the master mind today.
So that’s the system. Now people may say Byrne, you’re being paranoid and whatever.
Further, Byrne accuses short seller Carol Remond of accusing Byrne of participating in a "Gay bathhouse cabal".
By the way, Carol Remond has something stuck in her craw about the fact, most people I think understood that when I said “those I took baths with” to mean like my cousins and brothers, whatever, girlfriends. She’s calling around and saying that there’s a, Byrne has a gay bathhouse cabal and that’s where this has been organized. Something about the whole bath reference has steamed Carol. My theory is it’s because she’s French…
Byrne then feels the need to make sure everyone knows that he himself is not gay, but then makes sure to give no offense to gays. In the midst of this explanation, he says he is sure that Carol is the one behind the Gay Bathhouse Cabal rumors because in a sting operation, he started a rumor ON HIMSELF that he was a "coke head".
I put information down there that I was gay. And…I put information down that I was a coke head. Now my apologies to my gay friends, both within and without, outside the company, I don’t mean to equate the two. I don’t care. I’m a libertarian and I don’t care at all. In fact I don’t give a hoot if anyone thinks I’m gay, but I thought that by keeping, by putting that information down on one channel and putting the coke head information down the other channel, I would then know if it leaked…
Of course, Byrne now has to clarify that he does not in fact, do coke.
On the coke head thing, and by the way, I’ve never, with one exception, I’ve never even seen cocaine in my life so in case you’re wondering, no, I’m not a coke head...
But Byrne cant help himself and then decides to describe his sting
I made something up. I said, “I’m going to Venezuela, I’m going to need some bodyguards.” Well, there’s no way he could really say no. And he’s a fine guy. I mean, I don’t envy him. So I went in to see him and he met me, brought a witness and my guess is he was taping it...
Byrne, realizing he might sound insane at this point, clarifies with the following:
So that’s where we are. You may think I’m nuts…. If you think I’m nuts about all this, just ignore. Just ignore me. Just don’t do anything about it...
Byrne decides to end his monologue with this threat against the sith lord set against him: Did I stutter? Did I stutter or did I say I was going to take this fight to you? Well now you know what I meant. And lastly, the man I’ve identified here as the Sith Lord of this stuff I just say, you know who you are and I hope that this is worth it, because if the feds catch you again, this time they’re going to bury you under the prison. And I’m going to enjoy helping.
This was back in 2005, so you are going to have trouble finding the actual audio, but public partial transcripts available can be grabbed from here: 1 2 3
** Repost from Reddit, but gold **
Can you please send a link for this absolute gold??? I am cracking up and want to read it
Byrne is wild. I know a few people that worked with him directly. They said he always smelled really weird. Another said they saw him peeing outside around the facility.
I loved this one at FCAU's Q3 Earnings Call
Adam Michael Jonas, Morgan Stanley
Okay. Sergio, this is your last year, last full year. What do you want to be remembered for?
Sergio Marchionne, CEO & Executive Director
Being able to answer your questions, Adam.
Adam Michael Jonas,
All right. Then let me finish with something real quick and we'll move on. You -- back in 2004, when you were first introduced to the auto industry, a lot of people were thinking, who the hell is this guy, right? I was one of them, frankly. We hadn't seen anything like you. You took EUR 2 billion, roughly, and you turned it into, I think, around EUR 72 billion. And more important than that, there are many hundreds of thousands of families across many nations that are better off because of you and your team. And you beat the skeptics every step of the way. So I just had to say, God bless you, Sergio. We're never going to see anyone like you again. I don't care what people on this call think of me for saying that. I don't care at all. I just had to say that. Thanks again.
Sergio Marchionne, CEO & Executive Director
Thanks, Adam.
--
SMG's CEO just had a nice rant yesterday with all kinds of profanities and said "dude" a lot.
OG frontpoint call:
Since the site isn't loading it properly: "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sb0FE-xl_lY"
Starting with "yeah, hi" is such a strong start and you just know it's going downhill from there. Steve Eisman chose violence on this one.
.
there was a RICK call a while back that was pretty entertaining
This Adam Wyden is a major piece of work.
Can you narrow the year/quarter a little? I’d really like to look at it since it’s talked so much on fintwit lol
Can you narrow the year/quarter a little? I’d really like to look at it since it’s talked so much on fintwit lol
It was probably q1 2021 90% chance it was q1 2021, but slight chance it was q2 2021
I thought Great Canadian Gamings call after the announced the takeover from apollo was pretty hilarious. Ended with some hedge fund guy telling the CEO that that they will find a new ceo who will do right by shareholders etc, some colorful language.
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