US Bancorp CEO sees more activism

Head of bank lobbying group predicts hot proxy season

The chairman of a powerful banking industry lobbying group predicts a hot proxy season coming up, particularly on questions of executive compensation. ‘I think you’re going to see a whole new groundswell of shareholder activism,’ predicted Richard Davis, chairman of the Washington DC-based Financial Services Roundtable.

Davis, who is also chairman, president and CEO of Minneapolis-based US Bancorp, went on to blast his own industry saying ‘as an industry, we failed the American people,’ a view he says is shared by most of his banking colleagues. The comments were made on local public radio in Minneapolis on Monday Jan 25 where Davis was alternately apologetic, diplomatic and combative in discussing the future of the banking industry.

Posted on Corporate Secretary Magazine webisite
Read more here.

How does Target respond to a rumor half a world away?

Target's Indian operation subject of sale rumor in local press

 
Target Corp. (NYSE:TGT) issued an unusual and strongly worded statement denying an Indian newspaper report that it plans to sell its India technology unit to a software company. Target’s strong and rapid denial highlights the challenges a global company faces in dealing with rumors 12 times zones and half a world away.

Published on MinnPost Jan 22
Read more here.

After complex financial transaction, Gander Mountain set to go private

Gander Mountain, the St. Paul-based hunting and fishing retailer with 118 megastores across 23 states, completed a necessary step Friday in its announced plan to voluntarily delist the company’s common stock.


In a complex, two-step transaction designed to reduce its total number of shareholders under the 300 threshold necessary for delisting, the company announced it had completed a 1-for-30,000 reverse split of its common stock followed by a 30,000-for-1 forward split of its common stock.

Published on MinnPost Jan 18
Read more here.

2009’s most influential people in business ethics

Jack Welch's 'dumbest idea in the world’


What do a pharmaceutical sales representative turned millionaire whistle-blower, a corporate lawyer tasked with changing a bribery plagued global corporate culture, the new head of the Securities and Exchange Commission, the murdered head of the Liberian anti-corruption commission and the head of the EU’s anti-trust commission have in common?
Post on IR Magazine website Dec 30, 2009
Read more here.

NASDAQ OMX to cut losses in Dubai

Exchange sells stake in NASDAQ Dubai and takes $81 mn charge

The financial market meltdown in Dubai continues to impact investors beyond the Dubai real estate market. NASDAQ OMX announced last week that it will absorb an $81 mn pre-tax non-cash impairment charge as it sells its 33.3 percent stake in NASDAQ Dubai for $120 mn to the state-controlled Dubai Financial Market (DFM) less than two years after the deal launched.  
Post on IR magazine website  Dec 30, 2009

Read more here.

Distressed sales to drive M&A in 2010

Healthcare eyed as most active sector, says survey

In a near unanimous consensus, 94 percent of middle-market M&A professionals expect strategic investments to accelerate in the first half of 2010 and lead to a pickup in deal activity, according to the latest semi-annual survey of deal makers released by the Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) and Thomson Reuters.

As posted on IR Magazine Dec 22, 2009

Read more here.

Going Dark -- Why Companies go Private

Gander Mountain: Case study in challenges facing small public companies


By Brad Allen
Published on www.MinnPost.com

Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2009

Despite a dramatic turnaround in earnings, Gander Mountain intends to go private after a nearly six-year run as a public company. The reality: It simply doesn’t fit the current market’s public model.

Read more here.

End of GRAS: Whither Independent Research?

Independents' day

• Spitzer’s global settlement expires after five-year run
• Independent research grew under the settlement, and is still strengthening
• Exchanges provide independent small-cap coverage

.Born out of New York attorney general Elliot Spitzer’s investigation into conflicts of interest among research analysts at investment banks, the Global Research Analyst Settlement – or simply the global settlement – has been described as ‘the nail in the coffin of sell-side research’ as well as a ‘pot of gold’ for independent research providers. After all the ink and talk, the settlement ended its predetermined five-year run on July 31.
Published in IR Magazine Oct, 2009
Read full artcile here.

Black Swans, Leadership Failures, Culture Clashes: A Conversation with Bill George -- Part II

RiskRewardNews recently sat down with Bill George, former Medtronic CEO, current Exxon and Goldman Sachs board member, best-selling author on leadership and a teacher at the Harvard Business School. In Part II of our interview Bill opines about risks we overlooked, failures of leadership, lessons not learned and the culture clash within business schools. Here is a sample of what he had to say:

"We’ve lost sight of the fact that it still takes just as long as it ever did to create a new microprocessor, a new car, a new drug, a new medical device."

"...either an incredible series of three Black Swans coming in simultaneously... or alternatively, the models are wrong."

"You should not let the process be dominated by people who think they're smarter than everyone else."

"There is a split or dichotomy in almost every business school between the finance faculties and the people (teaching business ethics)."

To read the entire interview, click on the link below. Part I of the interview is also available on this site.

Read more »

Allen's Theory of Value Presentation

I spoke before a joint meeting of the Columbus, Ohio Chapter of National Investor Relations Institute (NIRI) and the Financial Executives Institute (FEI) making the business case for business ethics.

Attached is a copy of the slides with transcript notes.  Key points inlcude:

Read more »

What the ‘tweet’ do we know?

IR in the Age of Social Media: Best Practice Tips for the IRO
by Brad Allen published on IR Magazine's website

‘The risk posed by social media for your company ... exists whether you participate or not,’ observed Darrell Heaps, CEO of Q4 Web Systems, an IR website and communications firm out of Toronto. ‘If you’ve ignored social media and said there are too many risks, we‘re not going to get involved, then you are putting your company at higher risk ... than if you know how to use the tools. The market doesn't care whether or not you’re there. They’re going to use the channels that are most readily available to them to put their message out.’

Read more here.

Uncertain or Under Fire? Ask the Experts

I participated in a webcast sponsored by the NIRI Chicago and Virtual Chapters titled: Uncertain or Under Fire? Ask the Experts

Participants were:

• Moderator: Lisa Ciota, director of investor relations, McDonald’s Corp.
• Brad Allen, founder, editor & publisher, Risk/RewardNews.com; chair, NIRI Ethics Council
• Sally Curley, senior vice president of investor relations, Cardinal Health
• Bradley Wilks, managing director and Chicago office CEO, Sard Verbinnen; 2010 chairman of the NIRI national board of directors

We got great questions from the audience. Topics covered included: 
earnings pre-announcements, spin-offs, social media, corporate politics, conflicts with outside advisors, health issues with a CEO, gaining managment support for IR, the media impact on IR programs, and IR's role in strategic intelligence.

Link  here for the transcript or to listen in.

Short-Termism, The Myth of the Rational Market, and Fire Fighting IROs : A Conversation With Bill George -- Part I

RiskRewardNews recently sat down with Bill George, former Medtronic CEO, current Exxon and Goldman Sachs board member,  best-selling author on leadership and teacher at the Harvard Business School. Here is a sample of what Bill had to say.

".... In an era of transparency, can corporations and their CEOs be honest with Wall St. without getting an overreaction? "

"There is no value that a CEO can create on Wall St. ..." 

"We all can hype the stock. We all know how to do it. That’s why it’s a myth that the market is rational."

To read the entire interview, click on the link below.

Read more »

Curbs on High Frequency Trading Gather Pace

SEC and others target flash and cancel-on-initiation orders
by Brad Allen published on IR Magazine's website

High frequency trading (HFT), the lightening-fast algorithmic trading of stocks that, by some estimates, accounts for half to two thirds of total printed volume, will see its wings clipped as a result of public scrutiny following a negative front-page story in the New York Times.
Read full article here.

Sell side braces for commission cuts in 2010

Analyst and management contact rank high on buy side’s wish list
by Brad Allen published on IR Magazine's website

A recent Greenwich Associates survey of 268 sell-side institutions projects that commissions generated in trading US equities in 2010 could shrink nearly 25 percent to 2007 levels of $10.5 bn. Underneath that overall decline, hedge fund commissions are projected to shrink by nearly a third. As a result, the battered ranks of sell-side analysts could shrink even further, according to the Greenwich report released earlier this month.
Read full article here.

Why Enron Matters

Why Enron Matters. May June 07

View more documents from RiskRewardNews.