Customs Street Advisors

This week in Alrroya, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) business and financial daily, I champion the beneficial role that media interviews can play in raising the profile of companies among the investment community and addressing malignant information asymmetry.

Most public company executives regard media interviews as a distraction. In their view, they would rather be running their companies. As far as they are concerned, there is a dichotomy between minding the store and talking about the store. Read More…

This week on Street Talking in NEXT, I discuss the challenges small- and mid-cap companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange face in attracting and sustaining investment community attention. I conclude with a number of recommendations.

Initial public offerings and listings are very exciting events in the life of a company. Endless consulting sessions with advisers, regulatory filings, travel logistics for road shows, analyst presentations and PR campaign vetting impress on insiders that the company is crossing an historic threshold. Read More…

In announcements on strategic actions, companies often present the singular act as sufficient cause for a boost in shareholder value. This week in Street Talking on NEXT, I argue that that is not enough. To enjoy a higher valuation, companies need to improve the information environment to give investors a clearer view on the business. Simply focusing on other companies that have enjoyed higher trading multiples consequent to such transactions misses the subsequent actions they took in ensuring that the markets had a better understanding of their value creating actions.

This week marks the second anniversary since Apple, the maker of iconic products, announced its entry into the mobile handset space with the iPhone. On the same day Steve Jobs, its CEO, demoed the phone at the January 2007 MacWorld Conference, the company changed its name from Apple Computer to simply Apple, Inc. The Cupertino, California-based company’s decision to excise ‘computer’ from its name was intended to reflect its transition from solely designing and making personal computing products with cult status to a broader portfolio of consumer electronics goods and services, including on-line distribution of music, home entertainment systems, digital audio players, cellphones, software and of course, computers with wider appeal outside its core geek demographic. Read More…

This week on Street Talking on NEXT, I review the tactics of shareholder agitants on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 2009 and identify why they enjoy very limited success in galvanizing popular support.

In his famous 1947 essay, ‘The Sources of Soviet Power’, George Kennan, the late distinguished foreign policy wonk, writing under the pseudonym ‘X’, advised the US government that only ‘the adroit and vigilant application of counterforce at a series of constantly shifting geographical and political points’ could contain Russia’s imperial ambitions. His ideas would lead the US to sponsor several proxy wars in countries far removed from the epicenter of its vital interests such as Angola, Laos and Vietnam. Read More…

This week in Street Talking on NEXT, I discuss the critical role company websites can play  in closing the mispricing gap between stock prices and the underlying value of companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange.

I am appalled at the failure of most companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE) to utilize the web for investor engagement. In fact, about half of the companies on the NSE do not have any web presence at all. Among those that do, only a small number leverage the channel for investor communications despite the fact that a growing number of investors make decisions to buy, hold or sell stocks based on information they find on the Internet. If it is axiomatic that information is the lifeblood of markets, then company websites ought to be the most credible and authoritative sources for relevant, reliable and timely information. Read More…

The past year has not been kind to investors on the Nigerian Stock Exchange. From the euphoria of 2007, the market has plumbed previously unimaginable lows. Typical of such U-turns of fate, everyone has denied responsibility for the roles they played in the descent to hell. For companies and investors, claiming to the victim numbs the pain. This week in NEXT, I use the extreme metaphor of the drug addict to show how investors allowed themselves to be seduced by the market highs and why companies, who arranged these fixes, encouraged the habit.

If the three Rs, namely reading, writing and ‘rithmetic are the foundation of basic learning in elementary school, for investors on the Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), the apposite Rs would be rancor, recrimination and regret. For them, intemperate, even if misconstrued, statements by the Central Bank governor, whatever the genuine intent, have only rubbed insult to injury. Today, blame and bitterness are their trademark sentiments. This is a tragic tale of an acid trip gone awry. Read More…

In Nigeria, shareholder associations enjoy a disproportionate amount of space in most media coverage of comments on company actions and performance.  Frequently, the attributed statements of these associations’ officers are overwhelmingly positive, irrespective of the actions or performance. This can give a misleading view that the companies have the full support of shareholders. No dissent, no critique, no balance. This week in Street Talking on NEXT, I recommend three credible alternative sources of information that the press should include in its reporting on company results and plans.

Reading news stories about company results and public offerings I often wonder if they are all written by the same writer. The titles all share an uncanny familiarity. ‘Investors tickled by Company A’s FY Results.’ ‘Company C tantalizes shareholders with x kobo dividend.’ ‘Shareholders overwhelmingly laud Company E’s planned bond sales.’ Read More…

At the best of times, most companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange  put up a dismal performance at communicating with the investment community. The reverse in economic fortunes has exponentially amplified those failures. This week in Street Talking on NEXT I make a few recommendations for issuers on what they need to be telling investors at this time.

Bruce Wasserstein, the late chairman of Lazard, the storied investment bank and dealmaker extraordinaire, used to say that it was the lot of the corporate advisors to offer a lot of advice to companies for free, which can be a thankless task. The double facts that the counsel was valuable and free did not mean that the companies would take it. Companies are hard-wired to discount pro bono recommendations. Bearing the odds in mind, here are some suggestions to companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange on keeping investors engaged through the recession. Actually, investors might also find them useful in judging companies. Read More…

This week in Street Talking on NEXT, I review the attitude of companies on the Nigerian Stock Exchange to disclosure. I argue that cosmetic treatment of the subject are bound to be counter-productive because they will not address root causes. To avoid a repeat of ‘agent impunity’ that thrived at companies, transparency and access must become the new culture.

I distaste buzzwords. The ease with which they roll off the tongue obscures their gravity. All too soon, phrases that originally signaled critical leaps in innovation or timely responses to stakeholder expectations come to represent the very worst of a me-too catechismness. Read More…

In the past year, there have been calls from several quarters for the Nigerian Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to carry out an overhaul of the regulations guiding the country’s securities market. In June 2009, the SEC, as part of its response to the challenges of regulating participant relationships on the Nigerian Stock Exchange released a set of proposed draft rules and amendments. Among these, draft rule B4(3) would require securities issuers to provide  investors with earnings guidance. Oddly, there has been little public debate on the draft proposals, while comments, inputs and submissions on the proposals were limited to less than three weeks from the date of publication. This contrasts sharply with the lively exchanges in developed country markets over the utility and costs of earnings guidance. The SEC’s draft proposal is a curious one considering that even in the United States, securities law does not require companies to provide earnings guidance. In this post, we briefly examine the key arguments of both sides of the debate, and proffer suggestions and safeguards Nigerian companies can adopt to limit the risks and meet the demands of makings these types of anticipatory business performance statements.

In his 2000 annual letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders, Warren Buffett came down hard on the practice of providing earnings guidance. In his view, the expectations that these projections created were clearly unsustainable, at best, and viciously misleading, at its worst. In addition, it created a perverse incentive for CEOs to manage earnings so that they could always beat the Street.

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