There was a time when the Conference Call was all the rage. It was hotter than The Sopranos. Hotter than Day Traders. Hotter than Martha Stewart. Hotter than Zaghloul and Fattouche, the Calgary one-two tech punch, in their heyday.
Investors would awaken in the wee hours just to catch the latest gobbledygook from the CEO of a company that did something that had something to do with something that had something to do with technology.
In those days, you were nobody unless you owned Wi-Lan and Cell-Loc, two cellphones and listened to at least two high-tech conference calls a day.
My pal Bre-Xer, who now leads a normal life dealing cards at a blackjack table, installed an extra phone line in his house as a tribute to this phenomenon.
Alas, the excitement has waned.
Nowadays, people who didn’t sell Cell-Loc at $75 in March of 2000 have actual jobs so they can’t catch the conference calls. And, post-VisuaLABS, post-Enron, post-WorldCom, etc., those who still listen to the calls have become totally unreasonable in their demands.
For example, shareholders demand to know what the company does (considering many companies aren’t sure what they do, this throws a monkey wrench into the conference script).
If that’s not enough, they expect straight talk and clarity. They expect the CEO to speak English, not techno-gobbledygook.
Worse, for those earnings announcements, they want to know what the earnings are, not what they will be in 2087.
Some companies have not adapted to these demands very well.
This was apparent by listening to a recent replay of the Cell-Loc conference call.
If you hadn’t done nine hours of research prior to this conference call, you probably had no idea what exactly Cell-Loc does.
(The company had some explaining to do, concerning its latest financials – a $15.97-million net loss for the first quarter of fiscal 2003 and a writedown of $11.9 million).
Although the call lacked clarity and hard facts that shareholders were looking for, it scored reasonably well as a commercial (surprising for a company that has struggled to commercialize its cellular location technology).
Stated CEO Sheldon Reid: “We are very confident that this market will respond favorably to Cell-Loc’s offerings, which can meet the needs with more accuracy, more responsiveness in real time and at lower cost effectiveness . . .”
Unfortunately, Reid’s droning voice did not match his optimism.
There was none of the music in his voice that was so evident with CEOs during the tech boom. He sounded like a man reading an obituary.
The Calgary company also said it was “motivated to confirm the complete business separation of Cell-Loc from (U.S. affiliate) TimesThree Inc., in part because the evolution of our technology has surpassed the assumption implicit in the TimesThree business model.”
Now, that clears everything up, doesn’t it?
When Reid introduced chief technology officer Michel Fattouche, we held out hope that maybe the founder and former CEO of the company might steal the show and rouse listeners from their slumber.
Unfortunately, Fattouche’s brief cameo amounted to nothing more than a pat on the back for his successor, delivered in a despondent tone. “I would like to acknowledge the very strategic and focused direction in which Sheldon has taken Cell-Loc,” stated Fattouche.
“He has reoriented Cell-Loc as an intellectual property company with a low-cost wireless location technology suitable for many applications.”
Reid immediately was back on stage, providing an update on Chinese operations.
“Cell-Loc Chongqing, Cell-Loc’s venture in China, continues to make progress. They currently have a number of Cellocate sites deployed and a test bed in Chongqing and are in the process of optimizing and fine-tuning the network. We expect the test bed to be completed for demonstration by the end of the year.”
Presumably, shareholders were cartwheeling over this news.
Shareholders were clamouring for news from Brazil, but Reid saved it for the tail end.
“Regarding the activities in Brazil, today we are not prepared to announce that our agreements in Brazil have been finalized. Nonetheless, we do not believe the reasons for delay (represent) any change to the intent of the parties involved.”
Presumably, most of the callers had nodded off by the end of the 15-minute call as even the question period was deader than a dot-com.
The operator may also have nodded off. After a minute of dead air, she surfaced: “We do have one question, Mr. Reid, would you like to take it?”
“Oh, for sure,” said Reid, his voice flat.
“How does this affect the California deal?” BMO Nesbitt Burns analyst Andrew McManus asked Reid.
“It does not affect the California deal at all,” said Reid. “Let there be no confusion. Times Three Inc. was our U.S. affiliate and this has come up with a number of people who have talked to me. Times Three is a trademark name of Cell-Loc. We use it for TimesThree Calgary . . .
"We will use that name in any other territory where we build out our Beacon technology. TimesThree Inc., which was our U.S. affiliate, our wholly owned affiliate, ah, was really the entity which we coined the trademark name from. So you may hear TimesThree California, TimesThree Austin, TimesThree Calgary, but those will be arm’s-length entities which will probably not be wholly owned subsidiaries of Cell-Loc like TimesThree Inc. is.”
“OK and one more question,” continued McManus. “Can you give us a little more update on Brazil? At the last call, of course, you were very confident that you were going to have a deal within 30 days.”
“As I’ve just stated, our negotiations in Brazil continue,” said Reid. “Uhh. It, of course, has been a little slower than even I expected. Uhhh. And today we’re very optimistic this protracted negotiation in Brazil will come to a close in the very near future.”
At that point, the call was put out of its misery.
Mercifully.
* SAGE WORDS: “Amazingly, after trillions were lost, we still have no regrets, no apologies, nary a mea culpa for those who heartlessly led us to the financial slaughter . . . Those one-note charlatans would, even after every penny of life savings had been lost, still recite those bogus mantras meant to take our eyes off the ball, and our wallet, even as they suffered not a penny from their admonitions. They are still shilling their wares, except now they are saying the stock market is even more undervalued than before.”
– James Cramer, in a book that explains the year in its title, You Got Screwed.
 |
| |
ZIC-TSX $4.75
Up $1.13 (+31.2%) on 244,100 shares (for week ending Nov. 29).
The love-hate relationship with Zi continues. Investors fell head-over-heels back in love with the stock when the Calgary software outfit said a judge had granted an injunction against older versions of its software in a patent lawsuit with Tegic Communications, but rejected a bid to have the damages tripled to $9 million. The stock has more than doubled since tanking to $2.15 two months ago.
 |
| |
CLQ-TSX 92 cents.
Down 17 cents (-15.6%) on 297,000 shares (for week ending Nov. 29).
Cell-Loc did some serious housecleaning, taking a writedown of $11.9 million in network assets and inventory and said it was abandoning the cellular location business model. The result was a loss of $15.97 million for its first quarter of fiscal 2003 and a rapid return to penny-stock status for the one-time high-flying Calgary tech company.
