RE: Conference callI listened to it eventually.
Talked about high corn prices vs. slowdown in textiles, industrials etc, so costs not really passed on. Imbalances there will correct eventualy, most people would have assumed anyway I guess.
Talked about their position, as a response to a question, which essentially boiled down to were they big enough to compete. They think they are of course. Figure they are a top 10 producer, but without a supply/demand analysis for China, who can say whether they have the scale or not..
They discussed accounting standards etc, their strightforward business model, a few things they have done to increase transparency as a response to the chiana small cap situation. They tried to talk these efforts at transparency up, but since they have never addressed them before now, and they were not visible to anyone prior to today, I wouldn't say they have really done anything of note, from an IR point of view, not with any decisiveness...
The analysts asked a couple of questions about the accounting. It was clear from their questions that "take the company's word for it" is pretty much all they have to go on, They themselves could not personally vouch for the company's operations or numbers. They offered no support or confirmation of their own. ABC mentioned at the beginning of this part that they had an investor day every year, with factory tours and meet the customers and so on, but the analysts questions and manner did not suggest any familiarity with any of this.
So, business is soft, it's not really clear where they stand competetively, and the accounting is take their word for it.
The call wasn't bad, really, by any means. It was OK. They just didn't come out of the gate guns blazing I guess, on any front.