Growing Rich - Arabictrader.com

KIRK KAZANJIAN
for interviews with company officials in the media. You might even
ask the IR folks to send you a stack of articles and analyst reports
about the company. (Most keep this stuff on hand to fulfill such requests.)
Finally, you can ask the IR department for a list of brokerage
analysts who follow the company. Then, call some of these analysts
and get their insights on the company. Many have met the CEO personally
and might be able to give you a clue as to how trustworthy
he or she and his or her counterparts are.
MEETINGS AND MORE
Davis doesn’t necessarily need to meet with executives from every
company he invests in. However, he’s convinced that the smaller a
firm is, the more important a personal inspection becomes. By the
same token, it’s much easier for individual investors to connect with
high-level executives at tinier companies, since these executives are
more eager to attract shareholder interest. Don’t be surprised if a call
to the CEO’s office of a small-cap company lands you at least a personal
phone meeting with him or her.
In addition to personal visits, Davis goes to a lot of analyst meetings
and makes frequent follow-up calls to top executives at the companies
he follows. “I believe in Peter Lynch’s theory that if you call 10
companies, you’ll get one idea. If you call 20 companies, you’ll get
two ideas, and so forth,” he shares. “So I spend a lot of time calling
companies from wherever I am. It’s easier to call when I’m at my
home in Maine sometimes, because the CEO feels as if you’re interrupting
your vacation to talk to him and will take your call. It works
like a charm from Wyoming and Florida too.”
If you can’t reach the CEO yourself, sometimes the IR department
can put you in touch with another executive who can provide similar
information. Be persistent when you call. Let the company know you
are a shareholder, or potential shareholder, to be reckoned with, regardless
of how much you have to invest.
Before leaving on a recent trip from New York to Maine, Davis
stopped by to see the management at General Re in Stamford, Connecticut.
This is the largest property and casualty reinsurer in the
United States, and the fourth largest in the world. It was also one of
his favorite and biggest holdings, prior to being bought out by Warren
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway in 1998. Davis’s visit convinced him to
98