I'm a big fan of conference call transcripts. They have a ton of information often found no where else. I'm a hired diligence gun on a deal and just found a great piece of intelligence by searching transcripts. In the data room you'll find lots of data, but you have to look outside what they give you to find intelligence.
I started searching the target's transcripts this afternoon [I use the company name in keyword search instead of using a ticker and you'll see why] and found nine hits for the last year. The quarterly calls were all there and probably in the data room too. I'll go through those later. Next I found three instances where the target was mentioned on competitors' calls. In each case it was just analysts asking questions about industry strategies. That's good and interesting information to pass on to the rest of the team. Then I hit pay dirt - a competitor stated on its call that they've hired four senior sales reps away from target to help them enter a new vertical.
That's funny I don't seem to remember this mentioned in management's PowerPoint? Now they've got some explaining to do.
If you're selling your company, you are better off disclosing this kind of thing up front. In the Internet Age, there are few secrets.
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