Governance Verbiage

Hewlett Packard and Gannett recently announced progressive changes in shareholder voting powers for Directors on boards. They and perhaps others are singing from the same book as the critical paragraph that summarizes the new voting procedures is being used by over and over again by different individuals at different companies. There is no attribution for the text which clearly has been lifted from a seminar in corporate governance. While I applaud the changes would the real author of the following text please identify themselves.

"Under the policy, any nominee for director who receives a greater number of votes "withheld" from his or her election than votes "for" such election will tender his or her resignation for consideration by the nominating and governance committee of (insert your company name) board of directors."

Intel Buzzes the Buzz

Intel Corporation issued a press release late Nov 1, 2005 announcing a new advertising campaign. Essentially a supposedly dominant manufacturer of chips needs to announce that they are starting a new ad campaign. When the campaign starts it will be obvious. The press release is short and provides no real details. Just another opportunity to get the Intel name out there. Would Intel be feeling insecure about their position and feel a need to hype their hype.

Boeing Puff Piece

Boeing (NYSE: BA) just announced a significant deal with Ariana Airlines (Afghanistan). Reading the press release we learn that they had a nice celebratory dinner at Dubai’s Park Hyatt Hotel. But no information of the financial aspects of the transaction was made available. This is just an example of a puff piece creating a top of mind presence for the investor. While Boeing investors should applaud the new business you have to ask yourself what financial impact does it really have?

Weekend Follies Oct 29-30, 2005

Weekend follies identifies publicly traded companies that issued press releases at strange times over the weekend. This weeks culprits are
Dr. Reddies Laboratories NYSE RDY
Dtomi Inc OTC Bulletin Board DTMI
Bancwest Capital 1 NYSE BWE/P
Tipperary Corp AMEX TPY
AHPC Holdings NASDAQ GLOV
EFC Bancorp AMEX EFC

Caveat Emptor