Priced like the old business, running like a new one: management is redirecting the call away from the metric investors
The model's full reasoning — Q2 2022 call → NOWe need to determine if management repeatedly redirects attention away from the conventional yardstick and toward a different part of the business that is already earning, and indicates that the record hasn't caught up. Let's analyze the call. The company is Linde, an industrial gas company. The conventional yardstick for such companies is typically volume growth, pricing, and overall earnings. Management discusses various segments: EMEA, APAC, Americas. They talk about pricing, volumes, cost pass-through, etc. Key points: Sanjiv Lamba emphasizes the defensive nature of the model, contractual fixed payments, resilient end markets. He mentions that two-thirds of the business is protected. He also talks about the EMEA business and how it has navigated past shocks. He mentions that the company has been around for over 100 years. But is there a specific redirection? The question asks: does management repeatedly redirect attention away from the measure or storyline by which the company is conventionally judged and toward a different part of the business that it says is already earning today? And does management indicate that this different part is not yet what the company's reported results or outside understanding reflect? Let's look for such a pattern. The call is a standard earnings call. They discuss results, guidance, and answer questions. There is no obvious "conventional yardstick" being set aside. They talk about EPS, operating profit, margins, etc. They don't say "the old metric is no longer relevant" or "look at this new segment instead." They do emphasize the resilience of the model, but that's not a redirection to a different part of the business. They mention the U.S. packaged gas business as one of the fastest growing, but that's not a redirection away from the overall business. They talk about project backlog, but that's future. The question is about a specific phenomenon: management changing the subject from what the market measures to what the company is actually now earning from, while the reported figures still belong to the former. For example, a resource company saying "the commodity price is not what matters, it's our contracted processing business that is now the driver." Here, Linde is an industrial gas company, and the conventional yardstick is likely volume and pricing across segments. They don't set that aside.
| Ticker | Company | Call | Date | Call grade |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| NOAH | Noah Holdings Limited | Q1 2024 | 2024-05-30 | D |
| DUOT | Duos Technologies Group, Inc. | Q4 2023 | 2024-04-01 | F |
| OPAD | Offerpad Solutions Inc. | Q3 2023 | 2023-11-01 | C |
| SPT | Sprout Social, Inc. | Q2 2023 | 2023-08-04 | B+ |
| PRPH | ProPhase Labs, Inc. | Q1 2023 | 2023-05-11 | F |
| CALX | Calix, Inc. | Q1 2023 | 2023-04-20 | C+ |
| WD | Walker & Dunlop, Inc. | Q2 2022 | 2022-08-09 | C+ |
| LC | LendingClub Corporation | Q4 2021 | 2022-01-26 | A |
| CYBR | CyberArk Software Ltd. | Q3 2021 | 2021-11-04 | B+ |
| LPTH | LightPath Technologies, Inc. | Q4 2021 | 2021-09-09 | D |
| LOB | Live Oak Bancshares, Inc. | Q3 2018 | 2018-10-25 | C+ |
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