Stinson Partners is now Beeby Clark+Meyler
Friday, July 30th 2010
Friday, July 30th 2010
March 13, 2008
by Anna Snider, IR Magazine
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Immelt takes retail investor questions in webcast
FAIRFIELD, CONN -- In what’s being described as a ‘first of a kind,’ GE chairman and CEO Jeff Immelt hosted a live webcast with retail investors Thursday.
It was a wide-ranging conversation about GE, its 2007 annual report, the market and the 2008 outlook for the company. Investors submitted questions by e-mail ahead of time, but also asked them live during the event. One million people tuned into the broadcast.
The event was planned in conjunction with GE’s distribution of more than 3 million annual reports and proxy statements in preparation for its AGM on April 23.
‘We are really excited about this event and the opportunity to be able to more directly communicate with our ... 5 million shareholders, approximately 40 percent of whom are individual shareholders,' said GE spokesman Russell Wilkerson.
Immelt was joined by Chrystia Freeland, US managing editor of the FT, and Carl Quintanilla, co-anchor of CNBC’s ‘Squawk Box’. They provided 'expert third-party analysis on the markets and GE,' supplementing questions from individual shareowners with their own, said Wilkerson.
The event was simulcast on a number of Internet sites including CNBC, MSNBC, CNN, MSN, AOL, Yahoo!, Bloomberg, Forbes and theStreet.com. There’s no sense yet whether this approach will become standard for GE. ‘We are always looking for new ways to communicate with our investors both institutional and retail,’ Wilkerson said. ‘We love this idea and it really opens up new channels through technology. We’ll see how this event goes, learn from it and continue to use technology to reach investors.’
Retail investors have had other access to Immelt. GE does over 350 investor meetings per year, with many being webcast, Wilkerson said. ‘Jeff meets with investors regularly, including retail investors. One example is our City Swings program, where Jeff travels to cities and meets with individual shareowners and customers.’
The event should help drive investors to use the Internet as a way to receive the annual report. ‘The online version of the report has grown in popularity over the years and we are adding more functionality to it every year, such as downloadable spreadsheets and search capabilities,’ Wilkerson said. ‘Some investors prefer this format, and there are some cost benefits to it.
‘Our webcast is an extension of the online edition. There are still others, however, that prefer to receive an actual book,’ he continued. ‘So, we will continue to work with both formats, but look for ways to identify preferences in advance so we can meet needs and save costs.’
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