On dead frogs in SEC filings…
In nearly six years of digging through SEC filings, we’ve seen a lot. All sorts of things, really. But every now and then, we come across a filing that still surprises us. Like the 8-K that Expeditors International (EXPD) filed yesterday. The filing is in response to a question on legal expenses related to a Department of Justice investigation first disclosed nearly two years ago. Here’s the good part:
When you come from a frame of reference, as we do, where $0 spent on legal expense would be the most preferred alternative, having to predict anything beyond that, by its nature, would become inherently and incredibly biased towards our own wants, desires and expectations. To us, this is somewhat akin to being asked to predict how many minutes after being force fed a dead frog we would throw-up…and the operative word is “force,” as we’d never elect to do either on our own. In both cases (the legal fees or swallowing the dead frog) we’re certain we would eventually throw up. In neither case do we know exactly how much money or how much time would pass before we did. In both cases, however, our gut check, no pun intended, is not very much and not very long! It should go without saying that given our druthers, we’d rather not spend the legal fees or eat the dead frog in the first place. Sometimes you don’t get the luxury of deciding what you have to eat. When you do, and it’s unpalatable, it should be obvious that you would eat as little as possible. What we are certain of is that if we were talking about being force fed dead frogs and not incurring excessive legal fees, people would be content accepting at face value that it would be as little as possible.
We’re not sure who Expeditors outside counsel is, but it’s probably a pretty safe bet that they don’t like their billable hours being compared to the force-feeding of dead frogs. And while we’re pretty sure that the dead frog reference is figurative, instead of literal, hopefully PETA won’t find out about it or Expeditors could have another mess on their hands.
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Posted in Tags: 8Ks, odd filings |
 6 Comments » |
June 24th, 2009 at 10:46 am
Expeditors is famous for its 8-Ks. They love to be provocative, controversial, and just plain weird. A good example of a public company with permanent equity capital that behaves like a private company. They have always viewed their disclosure requirements with disdain.
June 24th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Thanks @TED. Wasn’t aware that EXPD was known for their quirky filings, but they’ve certainly caught my attention now.
June 25th, 2009 at 9:03 am
What a rather unique phrase for a filing. Dead Frogs may be a sensitive subject to these expediters
June 26th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
But is it crunchy?
June 27th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
Never miss a EXPD 8-k. Honest and straightforward management teams are hard to find and when you find them, never miss a word.
July 6th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Dead frogs are a recurrent theme for these clowns.
See
8-K Filed 04/25/03
“Processes are an ever-changing thing. It is said that if you throw a frog into
a pan of boiling water he or she will immediately jump out having been shocked
by the water temperature. Throw a frog in a pan of room-temperature water and
turn on the heat and they say that the cold-blooded frog will linger in that pan
and slowly cook to death – the dead frog being unable to detect the subtle
changes in temperature in the water.
Now we want to make it clear that we have never seen any of this and so we can
say that no frogs were harmed in the production of this Form 8-K, but if it is
true then processes are certainly somewhat like frogs.”