Saturday, May 31, 2008

Tiffany’s One Person Conference Call

Tiffany & Co (TIF) announced some pretty good results. Overseas revenues were strong and the New York flagship store saw a lot of spending by European tourists. The inventory accounting system was changed and diamond sourcing was improved. All of this is incredibly important.

The only executive who could show up for the call was the VP Investor Relations who basically went through a complete MDA of the results. No analysts were on the call but if you listen to the conference call transcript he is speaking as if the analysts are there and need information to adjust their models. The average investor who probably does not have the same model capability does not know what to do with the information.

The press release was underwhelming with information. The top executives could not show up for the conference call and the analysts were not live. Just a little bit short of laughable if you ask me.