Role of a shareholder
I am large stakeholder in a public traded company on the TSX-V. It’s not THAT large but large by some standards; something like 4% of available shares or just short of that. The company releases quarterly reports as well as an annual report at their AGM. And there are news/press releases intermixed occasionally between all that. They release news when there is something worth releasing and not just because they haven’t released anything in a while. And prior to some releases in late November, it had been several months since their last release.
But I’m not overly concerned. There are several things I think they could do better, but then again, I’m not privy to all the information – I’m not there day to day, dealing with clients and handling business and partner relations. But on occasion I’ll fire off an email to one of the people I know there to see how things are going and to offer my thoughts. His replies usually come a week or two later because, in terms of running the company, I’m pretty low on the list of priorities. Although I may have invested my money in the company, a 30 minute email reply to me isn’t going to generate any more cash.
It’s always a tough gig to take care of your shareholders; when the company is small you are so busy trying to build the business that you don’t necessarily have time to deal with individual shareholders and when the company is large you have so many shareholders you can’t possibly deal with them all individually. Unless you are Microsoft or Nortel and have entire departments of employees to deal with that sort of thing.
That said, I am always available to answer questions via phone, email or Jabber from any investor or potential investor. I may not have all the answers all the time or there may be some information that is not available to be released, but what I can tell you I will. All you need do is contact me. And if there are any questions about our technology or the inner workings of our products, I can answer those also. Again, a phone call or an email is all that is required.
Fri, 24 Dec 2004 18:34 Posted in General
