IR director: Biz journalists "are not your friends"

The director of investor relations at Colgate-Palmolive Co. warned other investor relations managers that journalists can not be trusted to tell a company’s story accurately, according to a report in FinancialWeek.

Jeff Nash wrote that Bina Thompson stated, “These people are not your friends.”

Later, Nash wrote, “When William Perry, director of investor relations at SumTotal Systems Inc., asked Ms. Thompson about using the press to help gain some recognition for his small software company, she counseled against it. ‘There’s no upside,’ she said.

“Mr. Perry disagreed with that advice in an interview with FinancialWeek after Ms. Thompson’s talk. ‘If transparency is what investors want, and IR professionals are supposed to deliver, then we should embrace inquiries from the press,’ he says. ‘In fact, we should seek out opportunities for this sort of thing.’

“Of course, Ms. Thompson is not exactly desperate to tell Colgate’s story. The consumer-product giant’s shares have risen 36.4% over the past two years, compared with 18.4% for the benchmark S&P 500.”

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