Financial, Investment and Corporate Communication to Reach Key Audiences.
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Expert brings nearly three decades of communication experience to benefit companies looking to develop the right messages and the right way to deliver those messages to key audiences. His background includes experience as a newspaper reporter and business reporter at several daily newspapers in Kentucky, Tennessee and New Jersey, as the Knoxville correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, and as contributor to international editions of Investor Relations Magazine. His collaboration exploring environmental practices on the Oak Ridge, Tenn., Department of Energy nuclear reservation was recognized by his journalistic peers. Since 1989, Expert has worked with public companies and other organizations on strategic and short term communication projects. A journalist by profession and an MBA-finance and marketing graduate, Expert has deployed his expertise to write annual reports, earnings webcasts and news releases, presentation scripts for CEOs and CFOs to deliver to financial analysts and fund managers, and to develop other corporate communication. He founded and continues to run investment conferences focused on public companies located in Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana and Tennessee.
Expert worked with Genlyte Group, a lighting and fixtures manufacturer that wanted to demonstrate its strength in the face of an economic slowdown, and within a mature industry. Genlyte Group Incorporated was a billion-dollar company which designed, manufactured and marketed fixtures and controls for the commercial, industrial and residential markets. While the company had posted record sales and earnings, stock price growth was lackluster. Efforts to reach the investment community were inconsistent. Expert' approach was comprehensive. Management was interviewed to get their input on problems that might be cited by investors. Next, surveys of the investment community were undertaken for their opinions about Genlyte's performance, the quality of management, and the state of the company's investor relations program.
This information helped shape a series of marketing efforts to further define Genlyte's strengths and accomplishments. Expert scheduled analyst and fund manager conversations with the CFO; sent information packages in response to requests for information from phone calls. A corporate quarterly fact sheet was developed and sent to fund managers invested in the building products industry, as well as to analysts and portfolio managers in related industries.Additionally, a national business media campaign was launched to seek business stories in publications like Investors Business Daily, Barrons, and similar business/finance newspapers. As a result, Genlyte's stock price moved to a 52-week high while their peer group index increased only incrementally, and the technology-laden NASDAQ index fell sharply. The stock's P/E - once trading around industry levels - began to trade at higher multiples.Expert helped position a merger between two Indiana utilities as a "merger of equals." Indiana Energy and SIGCORP, Inc., which provided natural gas and electricity to about two-thirds of Indiana, used Expert as their resource to reach sell-side and buy-side analysts in Vectren Corporation's inaugural visit to Wall Street.
Management wanted the Street to know that this friendly "merger of equals" transaction would benefit all stakeholders and would foster growth of the company's telecom and non-regulated operations.
Expert met with management, scripted speaking points and developed a powerful financial presentation that outlined the companies' past successes, expected merger savings and future opportunities. By the company's first earnings teleconference, a key industry analyst upgraded his opinion and the stock continued to peak. Despite merger-related costs that accounted for nearly half of Vectren's first quarter earnings, its stock performance was positive.Addington Resources, a coal company headquartered in Eastern Kentucky, used Expert to help communicate a change in the company's direction. While primarily a coal company, the corporation also had interests in gold mining, citrus farming and environmental (landfill) services. Coal mining operations had been consistently profitable, but those earnings were offset by losses in other areas. An outside industry veteran was appointed president and chief executive officer by the board, and the new CEO arranged to sell off unprofitable divisions and properties.
Kirby Taylor's predecessor rarely communicated with the financial community. To retain the company's value in the market, Expert felt it was imperative to tell Wall Street exactly what was going to be done to turn around the company, and what results were expected. IR counsel arranged analyst forums in New York and Boston for Taylor to tell his restructuring story to Wall Street. In addition to an analyst teleconference, investor publications (annual report and quarterlies) were used to reinforce the restructuring messages. Despite steep charges that were incurred for the restructuring, Addington's stock maintained its value in the market.For a financial entity based in Kentucky, Expert provided media relations training for senior management. The training provided examples and hands on practice on television, radio and newspaper interviews, and improved their response and confidence in dealing with the media regarding ongoing stories or crisis situations.