Many years ago when I was on the talking head circuit, I had the fortune of being interviewed by a TV journalist in the process of making her name. She asked about my KPI in the profession and I side-winded that plant and field trips were part and parcel of the due diligence expedition, because disclosure and governance could not be taken for granted. I explained that it was as fundamental as “kicking the tires,” as the saying went.
To elucidate, in advance of a firm commitment, a potential investor travels to the manufacturing site to ensure that it functions as efficiently in practice as the senior manager claims it does in theory while on a capital raising visit to a money center. This was intriguing, she asserted, and hopefully she could encourage one of her producers to generate a feature about this ritual.
My next TV interview transpired about a month later and she assured me her producers were still infatuated with the programming precis, with a good deal of background research in the books, and when would I be available to discuss my due diligence ABCs and A2Zs with one of their specialized reporters? Could I supply names of a few industry counterparts to compare and contrast processes and experiences, good and bad?
That is, 1) you arrived at the manufacturing hub and the facility was as gleaming and automated as any shale-gas powered facility just off I-80, or 2) you landed at the remote airport and there was no one to greet you for three hours, and when the van driver wearing too much cheap aftershave escorted you to the sugar beet canning factory, it was only sightly less efficient than the operations you had studied in your post-graduate Dark Ages textbooks.
I was pretty excited, and when I returned to the office I compiled a list of so-called industry counterparts who might be willing to join me in front of the camera. My ensuing interview was about six weeks later, and although she insisted the project had not been moved to the back burner (ie, canned), the relevant chit-chat was fleeting only. However, the subsequent interview was about three and a half weeks post-hence, and the discourse had conclusively moved from reporting and production schedules to asking whether I’d been desk bound lately, or had had the occasion to travel to distant parts of the globe and examine first hand any investment opportunities for tire factories.
This journalist was half Dutch and half Portuguese, but reported only in English, which may shed light on how “tires” got lost in the translation. Come to think of it, two of the overhyped companies I’ve had the displeasure of being talked at were Nokian and Amtel-Vredestein, and according to Tire Review, the latter was not long for this world. Maybe it was I who misread the situation. In addition, last I checked she was broadcasting a scoop she and co-midnight oil burners broke in which NATO secrets were stolen by insiders and on-lent to adversaries. If you don’t know who the joke’s on it’s definitely not on her.