Topic starter
13/12/2006 10:42 pm
There is one way for sure to make MAL hear our pleas. My suggestion is to buy stock in Ambassadors International (AI). Today it was trading around $43.64 a share. Cancel just one trip on the boats next year and let MAL know why it's being done, and buy AI stock with the saved monies. That is part one one of my suggestion. The next part entails all of us speaking with one voice and having reasonable shareholder's proposals related to AI's passenger shipping interests placed before the other shareholders to vote on. If time and monies allow, attend the annual shareholders' meeting too.We do have a voice if we have the savy to find it!
18/12/2006 7:54 pm
Hi, Frank & steamboating colleagues:
Just catching up here on the web and read your recent posting on stock investing with a vested interest in the concern etc. Interesting point of view, for sure.
I know that in dealing with stock portfolio matters each year a formal report is mailed on the company yearly performance etc. Usually included will be a detailed proxy ballot concerning issues before the stock holders, board of directors to be added along with their compensation, stock options and at times 'golden parachutes.' Surprising to shocking who is going to be awarded what and we're not talking little bucks [$$] here. Many recipients ignore these ballots but I find them not only interesting but revealing. Study a number of reports and you see a pattern of the same names cropping up on boards from one company to another. If I see an issue or candidate I am suspicious of I vote 'No' or add a write-in. Other ballots indicate how the proxy votes will be handled by named individuals. Read each and every annual prospectus carefully page by page and line by line for the usual Wall Street gargon. Now-and-then stock holders vocing disenting concerns appear on the ballots with the usual suggestion from the board to "Vote 'No' on Mr. or Mrs. so-and-so in the best interest of the corporation." Some issues involve environmental concerns or conracting to laborers in 3rd World nations. Watch out when a company votes to go private and calls in all publicly held stocks. It's happened in the past. Weed out the little guys and you can pretty much act as you wish.
But within a year or so I noticed something unusual. I was NOT mailed the report or the proxy vote ballots. YIKES! Could be a concidence but I doubt it and I went 'Hmmm.' Many corporations contract with a concern handling the mailing, processing and tabulation of such proxy matters. Envelope wrapping and blank ballots all from the same press. It's probably just Dale being Dale. Who knows?
Cheers and good investing,
R. Dale Flick