Maybe we can chalk this all up to a sudden surge in holiday spirit — you know, how it’s better to give than receive. How else to explain why three top executives at Constellation Energy Group (CEG) voluntarily agreed to give up their change in control payments? [...]
From the earliest days of footnoted, we’ve had something of a soft spot for Krispy Kreme (KKD). Since that post in September 2003, the stock has dropped over 90%. Given this, we tend to pay a bit closer attention to their filings.
So when they [...]
Yesterday, we took a break from our normal trawl through the filings to cozy up with the transcript from the arguments before the Supreme Court over whether the Public Company Accounting Board (PCAOB), which was created under Sarbanes-Oxley, has a right to exist.
The arguments in the case, which [...]
As footnoted regulars know, we hate to pick on the same company twice in a row. Not that we necessarily consider outing the stuff that companies try to bury in their routine filings really picking on someone (or something). But we’re sure that some people see it [...]
You wouldn’t have picked this up in Dell’s (DELL) earnings announcement a few weeks ago or in the follow-up conference call, but it was buried in the 10-Q that Dell filed yesterday afternoon: Dell has agreed to settle a long-standing shareholder lawsuit over [...]
The Walt Disney Co. filed its 10-K yesterday and this exhibit in the filing caught our attention.
As the exhibit notes, Disney’s 11 outside board members received a raise from $65K a year to $80K a year. Granted, in terms of annual retention fees for [...]
While there aren’t a lot of hard and fast rules for mining SEC filings for interesting nuggets, it’s a pretty safe bet that if the words “company yacht” are mentioned in the filing, it’s worth at least a quick skim.
Late yesterday, InfoGroup (IUSA) (formerly known as infoUSA) [...]
On Friday night, I went to a screening of Food Inc. with Director Robert Kenner at the Phillipstown Depot, the former train station in Garrison that has been turned into a small theater. After the screening, Kenner took questions from the audience and I couldn’t [...]
This morning, there’s lots of buzz — unassisted by caffeine — over the fight over Diedrich Coffee (DDRX) which Peet’s (PEET) agreed to buy at the beginning of this month for $26 a share, but is now offering $32 a share after rival Green Mountain Coffee (GMCR) [...]
Earlier this week, Applied Materials (AMAT) announced that it was acquiring Semitool (SMTL) in a $364 million all-cash deal.
As we’ve footnoted before, Semitool had an interesting side-deal with CEO Ray Thompson that had the company leasing several planes and an aircraft hangar from separate companies [...]
Yesterday, there was a hearing in New York over the Lehman bankruptcy where Lehman CEO Bryan Marsal, who we’ve written about several times over the past year (see here and here). The big headline out of yesterday’s hearing was Marsal’s statement that claims [...]
When we posted on Nov. 12 about the flurry of margin calls at Boston Scientific Corp. (BSX), there was no way to know that the pace of involuntary stock sales would continue.
As a historical recap: Â Michelle noted in her post last week that company co-founders [...]
This morning, a certain sub-sector of the financial blogosphere is abuzz over the press release that Overstock.com (OSTK) put out late yesterday announcing that they had fired its outside auditor, who had just been hired earlier this year, and were filing an “unreviewed” 10-Q. Here’s a [...]
Today is Veteran’s Day, which means that the SEC (and all federal offices) are closed, even though the markets are open. Given that Monday was a big deadline for (mostly) third quarter Qs, it gives us a chance to play catch up and check in on those [...]
It’s been awhile since we’ve checked in on Vonage (VG), the once high-flying alternative phone company whose ads are still all over the place. But last time we checked in, they had just hired former Cingular marketing executive Mark Lefar to serve as CEO. Last August, Vonage [...]
It’s Q season and footnoted regulars know what that means — lots of crazy things buried deep in the filings. Sonya, Kristen and myself spent much of the weekend in our waders working our way through all sorts of filings. Some of the biggest names — [...]
After the public learned that the Obama girls wore J. Crew-designed coats for their father’s inauguration, the company enjoyed what became known as “the Obama bump.” Sales soared – especially after the company crowed about its connection to the First Family – and online traffic [...]
Yesterday, we poked at the SEC for not just dumping 6,100 pages of material on a Friday afternoon, but for failing to provide a road-map to the 536 exhibits. In separate conversations with me, a representative of the SEC and SEC Inspector General David [...]
Late yesterday, Peet’s Coffee & Tea (PEET), my personal favorite when it comes to caffeine delivery devices, announced that it was buying Diedrich’s Coffee (DDRX) for $213 million.
Coincidentally, Diedrich’s filed what’s likely to be its last 10-Q yesterday. But what’s surprising was the very first [...]
By now, you’ve probably heard or read about the massive document dump that the SEC unleashed on Friday night: 536 exhibits related to the Bernie Madoff case. Reading all of these — even figuring out which ones are worth reading — was all but impossible, [...]
October is recruiting month here at Northwestern University. Hundreds of students outfitted in sharp black suits huddle into crammed, overheated rooms trying to convince companies to hire them. Seniors and juniors prepare for these campus visits months in advance because it gives them an opportunity to show [...]
Now that the merger between Pfizer (PFE) and Wyeth (old ticker WYE) is completed, Pfizer’s compensation committee has agreed to reward two Pfizer executives for their “extraordinary efforts and…extraordinary contributions in addressing critical components of the transaction.”
In an 8-K filed yesterday, the company identified the two [...]
In the wake of 2007’s credit freeze and 2008’s $4.00+ per gallon gasoline prices, we thought that Winnebago’s (WGO) filings yesterday (an annual report here and a proxy here) might be interesting.
Winnebago, which manufactures the iconic “mobile dwellings” that lumber along America’s interstates, has indeed taken [...]
With the news yesterday that some form of the public option for healthcare appears to be moving forward, we can probably expect more companies to start including warnings like Walgreen (WAG) did in the 10-K it filed yesterday:
The Federal government has been considering proposals to [...]
This morning, everyone — and we do mean everyone — is buzzing about the tough rules apparently about to be put in place by Special Master Kenneth Feinberg. In this WSJ story, one person notes that the rules, which have yet to be made [...]
We’re still following along today, but one of the sessions that intrigued us yesterday was a presentation by Lloyd Khaner called “Management, Management, Management: The Key to Turnarounds”. Since we spend a lot of time paying attention to management-related issues here at footnoted, we listened [...]
We’re spending part of the next two days at the (warning: mute your computers before clicking) Value Investing Congress at the Marriott Marquis in Times Square listening to a bunch of mostly value-oriented managers talk about the secrets to their success. Among those slated [...]
Yesterday, Goldman Sachs (GS) reported third quarter profits of $3.19 billion on revenues of $12.37 billion, which prompted stories like this one in the New York Times about Goldman’s public relations problems over giving high bonuses.
While the release didn’t talk about the controversial [...]
The one-year anniversary of Lehman’s bankruptcy filing took place last month. But yesterday, Lehman filed its latest expense schedule which essentially tallies the cost of cleaning up over the past year. The total bill so far? $417.3 million!
Keep in mind that this just covers [...]
As we all know now, the Senate Finance Committee passed healthcare legislation yesterday. Of course, as this Bloomberg story points out, there’s still a long way to go.
One of the many things that has been amusing during this whole debate has been resistance by many [...]
Today’s one of those weird holidays where the markets are open, but the SEC is closed, which means no new filings today. But on Friday, before they left for the holiday weekend, the SEC released a bevy of comment letters, many of which focus on [...]
We were taken by surprise yesterday afternoon when we got a short email from the SEC that it had decided to appeal the insider trading case against billionaire investor Mark Cuban. The email was pretty concise: a short statement from SEC spokesman John Nester that [...]
Every now and then, we come across a filing that truly makes us scratch our head. We’re just not quite sure what to make of it. And that’s exactly how we felt when we came across this Form 4 filed late yesterday by AIG.
Maybe [...]
Late yesterday, Nutrisystem (NTRI) announced a deal with Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) to provide a 14-day starter program that will be available in over 3,200 stores. Because this is the first time that Nutrisystem products will be available in retail stores (as opposed to those incessant [...]
I was supposed to be at this XBRL conference that is taking place today and tomorrow in Arlington, Va. but unfortunately came down with a nasty cold and decided to participate virtually via Twitter and by dialing in to the sessions that seem [...]
In the proxy, that Microsoft (MSFT) filed earlier this week, there was an interesting new disclosure about Microsoft’s political contributions:
Microsoft recognizes the increasing interest of U.S. public company shareholders in establishing greater transparency of corporate political contributions. Microsoft discloses its political contributions to support candidates [...]
