Energy companies ramp up the slideshows…

Over the past week or so, we’ve noticed a number of energy companies filing Powerpoint presentations as 8Ks, so much so that we’ve wondered whether it’s some sort of requirement that we’ve yet to hear about. While the presentations each cover slightly different ground, there’s invariably a slide about what the change in Administrations is likely to mean.

Take this slideshow filed by Alliance Holdings (AHGP) earlier this week. The fifth slide is entitled “Obama and a Democratic Congress” and goes on to list positives and negatives and is similar to this slideshow that Alliance filed last week. One key difference is that the latest show lists two new negatives: union influence-card check (whatever that means) and something called new MSHA.

Alliance was hardly alone. Last week, Arch Coal (ACI) also presented at what Raymond James (RJF) billed as its “first annual coal investors conference” and also had its own slideshow and even went so far as to life Barack Obama and Joe Biden’s smiling faces from their campaign literature with a pull-out quote from Obama proclaiming that he “is a big proponent of clean coal technology”.

There was also this presentation that the Laclede Group (LG) gave to the CFA Society of St. Louis.

Then again, maybe all of these presentations are just the rush before everyone disappears for the holidays at the end of next week. After all, with both The Daily Show and the Colbert Report already on recess through the end of the year, can Wall Street be too far behind?

Posted in Buried treasure Tags: 8Ks, energy

5 Comments »

5 Responses to “Energy companies ramp up the slideshows…”

1. Brian Says:
   December 12th, 2008 at 9:34 am

   Well, they’ve nailed the “too much text” benchmark. It’s shame there isn’t some way to work in cheezy sound effects and slide transitions.

   I know the standard pp criteria don’t apply in this setting and that’s my point. This application doesn’t seem to call for a slideshow so why are they being used?

   I fear this is maybe a “two birds with one stone” situation and that somewhere, at some time company staff and/or stakeholders are being forced to sit in a darkened room and look at these slides while a presenter reads them aloud, verbatim and then later pats himself on the back for embracing “new” technology.

2. Randy Says:
   December 12th, 2008 at 9:50 am

   Great post! MSHA is the Mine Safety Health Administration http://www.msha.gov/. I make a few choice comments below:

   http://rlwilsonconsulting.wordpress.com/2008/12/12/energy-companies-dog-pony-show/

3. Jo McIntyre Says:
   December 12th, 2008 at 12:47 pm

   “union influence-card check” is shorthand for a process being advocated by unions that would make it easier to force workers into unions.

   In a card check election the employer agrees to recognize a union as a representative on the basis of signed authorization cards rather than a secret ballot election.

4. Bond newbie Says:
   December 14th, 2008 at 2:51 am

   Michele, here’s a link to the (admittedly right-wing) think tank Heritage Fdn on card check. Expect this to creep into your filings reading more frequently:

   “The Employee Free Choice Act [card check] would strip workers of their right to vote on joining a union…. unions have switched the focus of their organizing operations from private balloting to publicly signed cards.”

   http://www.heritage.org/research/labor/cardcheck.cfm

5. Michelle Leder Says:
   December 15th, 2008 at 9:45 am

   Thanks so much for filling in the blanks on this post. So glad that my readers are so smart in so many different areas!