You know…Nortel doesn’t have too many friends out there, especially in the analyst community. That may beg the following questions:
1. Is NT management so busy that they can’t take all of the questions at a quarterly Conference call? C’mon, it takes an extra hour every quarter! We know Mike Z. is a busy guy…but so are we…and even taking into consideration Mike’s stock buys, he has made plenty of money in NT.
2. Why is Ms. Craig {Nortel’s VP of investor relations] so nasty to analysts, not to mention actual shareholders? Whether you like the conclusions of some street analysts or not, they are smart people. Silverstein, Umiastowski, Arya, Bhargava, Coleman, Gelblum, Sue. They have influence. They have been following NT since before Janet, Pavi and Mike were even around. You need the analysts on your team. Don’t be short, don’t be rude, don’t screw them (anymore).
Consider the following:
First, Craig lets her good friend, Gus Papageorgiou at Scotia, (one of the real bulls on NT) get absolutely shanghaied in Q1. It will be a long time before Gus gets a real warm fuzzy about NT. Institutional Investor award for 2008, probably not? Thanks, Janet.
And then from the conference call:
Vivek Arya – Merrill Lynch – Analyst Maybe I could just follow-up with a clarification.
Janet Craig
I don’t know, Vivek, so the clarification okay we’ll see if it goes, okay.
Wouldn’t want to let the Merrill Lynch analyst ask a question! We have rules!
Craig won’t even let Mike Z talk…
Mike Zafirovski – Nortel Networks – CEO
Sorry. In terms of the first element of that question I just missed that because I think Janet was just talking.
Craig
I was trying to interrupt you, if you could only ask one question actually, Paras. Okay, your first question was on deferred revenue?
Janet…don’t interrupt The Boss. And to Ehud Gelblum of JPMorgan:
Craig: One question. One question, thank you.
And to UBS analyst Nikos Theodosopoulos:
Craig: I think Nikos, Pavi answered that question. So we’re going to go to the next caller.
Gee, Nikos, I know you really don’t favour NT. I’ll be extra rude to you just to make sure you never change your mind.
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Another Nortel Watcher
Laid-off NT Beancounter - the technical guy is lucky she didn't grab his face. ;-)
People with an inflated sense of self-importance such as you describe usually stall and fail at some point because they lose support from those they need it from. It's too bad for those they work with that it often takes a long time for this to play out.
Can't agree more on the conf call length issue. Why not run it an extra hour and take more questions. As you say, it's one hour out of the quarter and it isn't like there are any other outlets for shareholders to talk.
There at least should be a way to submit questions and allow participants to see them, and observe which are picked by mgmt to answer.
Laid-off NT Beancounter
I worked in Finance with Janet at NT and she is a generally a bully and likes to put the supporting staff in their place. In preping for an employee staff conference call, the technical guy asked to to talk for 15 seconds so he could set her levels, etc. She proceeded to ream him out (with about 30 people listening in) saying that by chatting to him for a few seconds when she called in that that should have been sufficient and that she is a busy person. That the former CFO, Controller and other Finance VPs took the time to do it didn't seem to matter. O, and she had been on the job for about a month at that point. Nice.
ex-nt2
True analysts need to follow the rules of one question. I have been on conference calls for many companies. Analysts ask a few questions and usually the CEO or CFO delicately handles that politely.
Being rude is not acceptable as it only turns investors off the company, especialy from PR, media relations people. Obviously these people cannot handle it either the pressure, hostility towards the media for Nortel bashing or just attitude. She could have done better handling this as its a very poor snub.
Notelhand, then your preference would be to allow a few people to ask questions until they are done? Which of course would leave out all the other folks with questions. Janet makes a simple clear statement at the beginning of the call that only one question is allowed per person. Next thing you know an analyst starts asking a series of questions. They are ignoring the rules and its Janet's job to not allow that. Although interrupting Mike was rather amusing!
Notelhand
Nortel needs to do something to get the stock price up. I have never found it helpfull to push people around that I need on my side. And Nortel needs some help, the stock price stinks, and has been stinky for a long time.
Analyst
I have to agree with Duncan on this one. Janet is the best Investor Relations person I have ever worked with. She has a difficult job managing a room full of analysts and I think she does it better than most. Your comment about "screwing" is offensive and mean.
Duncan
I have been listening to Nortel conference calls since 1990 -- and even back then they had trouble with conference calls (as do most large tech companies.)
It is simply not possible to allow every analyst to ask unlimited questions. Your suggestion of letting the call run "an extra hour" is impractical. Not because Mike Z and the team don't have the time, but because the sell side research analysts (and their associates) have to take all that info from the call and then digest it, re-jig their models, and spend a couple of hours writing up the notes.
Given that, the IR person has to be the "heavy." They have to cut people off, not allow follow-up questions that really are brand new questions, and so on. It is an art form. I have dealt with Janet at ATI, Angiotech and now Nortel...and I have always found her to be one of (if not THE) best IR people in Canada.
I can see how her manner might come across as a bit abrupt on the call...but my sense of the analysts who deal with her is that they like her quite a lot and do NOT find her rude or showing "attitude."
I think on balance she does a pretty good job trying to get as many questions in as possible.
Duncan Stewart (former sell-side Nortel analyst)
Apple
Duncan, I was so upset with your sell side analysis in the past and I was wrong. It was about other tech company, and you were just right. It is so difficult to accept the truth when you are just a believer... I agree with you on NT. I've been bearish on NT in last 5 years. I still don't see any positives about that stock for the future... I've said sell NT and buy aapl /in last 5 years. AAPL is high priced and deserves all the money investors pay for it. Duncan Stewart , you are an icon of the stock market. Thank you for sharing with us on this blog.
Conference Call Etiquette?
Guest post by Frank Burch
Why is Janet Craig Rude to Analysts?
You know…Nortel doesn’t have too many friends out there, especially in the analyst community. That may beg the following questions:
1. Is NT management so busy that they can’t take all of the questions at a quarterly Conference call? C’mon, it takes an extra hour every quarter! We know Mike Z. is a busy guy…but so are we…and even taking into consideration Mike’s stock buys, he has made plenty of money in NT.
2. Why is Ms. Craig {Nortel’s VP of investor relations] so nasty to analysts, not to mention actual shareholders? Whether you like the conclusions of some street analysts or not, they are smart people. Silverstein, Umiastowski, Arya, Bhargava, Coleman, Gelblum, Sue. They have influence. They have been following NT since before Janet, Pavi and Mike were even around. You need the analysts on your team. Don’t be short, don’t be rude, don’t screw them (anymore).
Consider the following:
First, Craig lets her good friend, Gus Papageorgiou at Scotia, (one of the real bulls on NT) get absolutely shanghaied in Q1. It will be a long time before Gus gets a real warm fuzzy about NT. Institutional Investor award for 2008, probably not? Thanks, Janet.
And then from the conference call:
Wouldn’t want to let the Merrill Lynch analyst ask a question! We have rules!
Craig won’t even let Mike Z talk…
Janet…don’t interrupt The Boss. And to Ehud Gelblum of JPMorgan:
And to UBS analyst Nikos Theodosopoulos:
Gee, Nikos, I know you really don’t favour NT. I’ll be extra rude to you just to make sure you never change your mind.
Janet, what’s with the attitude?
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