Facebook in the filings…
You may have heard (or, perhaps read) about a company called Facebook (FB), which is going public today. For weeks now, there’s been a steady drumbeat of stories, and an even steadier drumbeat of filings. The most recent S-1, with the pricing details, was filed on Tuesday morning, making it the 8th version of the...
Putting lipstick on the pig at Chesapeake…
We were going to write about something else this morning, but then Chesapeake Energy (CHK), which as footnoted regulars know is something of a frequent flyer here, decided to file its proxy statement, so we quickly changed plans. While the company did file a preliminary proxy on April 20, there’s a lot that’s happened since...
Living the suite life in Las Vegas….
Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson may be best known for funding Newt Gingrich’s presidential ambitions (he’s now being courted by Mitt Romney). But here at footnoted, we’re less interested in politics than we are in the fun details in the filings. So when we spotted the proxy that Las Vegas Sands (LVS) filed late Friday (just...
Too busy to read SEC filings…
For the past few days, I’ve been down in Florida, a place I once called home, driving between St. Pete, Winter Park, Sarasota and Venice to speak to local chapters of the American Association of Individual Investors. Since I (and the rest of team footnoted) spend a lot of our time in front of our...
Director pay: how high can it go?
We’re deep in the heart of proxy season, at least for the next few weeks (the deadline for companies on a calendar year is April 30), which means that each new day brings a crop of new and exciting disclosures about those Demi-gods who either run public companies or are lucky enough to be invited...
Trying to channel Steve Jobs…
Poring over as many proxies as we have been lately, we often come across familiar patterns, really language, that reminds us of something that we’ve read before. Part of that is undoubtedly due to the fact that the same handful of law firms, accounting firms and compensation consultants write most of what passes as proxy...
Inside a glass house at Morningstar…
Over the years, we’ve taken lots of companies (and their top executives) to task for things like over-use of the corporate jet, high-priced security services and even a taste for expensive maps. So if you saw one of us, for example, at a small executive airport about to board a Gulfstream V, it might make...
Inside a glass house at Morningstar…
Over the years, we’ve taken lots of companies (and their top executives) to task for things like over-use of the corporate jet, high-priced security services and even a taste for expensive maps. So if you saw one of us, for example, at a small executive airport about to board a Gulfstream V, it might make...
Putting Facebook’s revised S-1 to the test…
Given that we spend so much of our time delving into SEC filings — seemingly endless mountains of text that are particularly bountiful at this time of year — we’re always on the lookout for things that just might make our lives easier. So when we heard that some smart folks that we know were...
Barry Cottle has 30 million reasons to join Zynga
Back in January, the decision by Barry Cottle to leave Electronic Arts (EA) and join the newly public Zynga (ZNGA) generated lots of buzz. In this story, the LA Times described Cottle’s move as part of a bigger “hunting game” for big name gaming talent, noting that Cottle, whose avatar is pictured here, “was the...
On a very loud swan song at Goldman…
Normally, we tend to stick pretty close to what’s being disclosed in the filings. But we felt that too many people were talking — really, buzzing — about the op-ed piece that Goldman Sachs (GS) trader Greg Smith wrote for the New York Times this morning that we couldn’t ignore it. We’ve heard it called...
Chesapeake ends country club dues…
Now that Qwest Communications no longer exists, we here at footnoted need a new company to serve as that “Shining City On a Hill” to paraphrase Ronald Reagan — a company that stands for everything that is wrong about the disclosure that public companies make to their investors in 2012. Thankfully (especially since we’re still...
