Loop .. Sophist gave an excellent response to your post and I don't have a lot to add but there a couple of comments I would make.
As much as I have followed IDCC, if I made a living as an analyst, I would not iniate coverage unless I had a strong and credible report from a reliable source that Nok was done.
You probably wouldn't last long as an analyst if that is the case or, at a minimum, you wouldn't be a very well paid one. Analysts that are unwilling to take risks don't last much longer than dogs who spend their days chasing cars or golf pros who keep having to make four footers for pars. These analyst calls have to be put in the context of the primary audience, institutional money managers.
I'm about to make some generalizations about professional money managers that I recognize have numerous exceptions but I don't think they would refute my basic point. These folks are very disciplined in their approach to investing money and are all about diversification .. they don't bet the farm on anything no matter how great the potential pay-off might appear to be. They don't use leverage and they don't play "beat the clock" with options. They think in terms of building a balanced portfolio rather than picking the very best stocks. Their goals are long term and expressed as average annual returns in the 10%-20% range. They use a top down approach (i.e. start with an economic forecast) to build their portfolios rather than bottom up (i.e. start with picking stocks). They expect to have some losers and understand that some of them might even be big losers. They understand that analysts are going to make mistakes and focus on their batting averages rather than any one time at bat. They are especially willing to cut an analyst some slack when he or she is wrong for the "right" reasons (something happened to make the forecast wrong that no reasonable person could have expected .. like litigation to resolve NOK/SAM). They are much more concerned about the likely final resolution and willing to hang in there for it to come than worried about any missteps that may happen along the way. The sell-side analysts understand all of this about their institutional clients and go about their jobs with that as a foundation. They all speak the same language and look at money management the same way.
Based on your past dealings with IDCC, do you feel that the present IR and accounting personnel are savy enough to walk through the institutional mine fields as the company moves forward?
I'd have to spend a lot more time with them to make a personal judgment on that. However, it sure seems to me that they have come a very long way in that regard. Just compare the most recent CC with the ones back when I sent my report to them in January 2001 as well as no sell-side analyst coverage then as contrasted with four today and the very high likelihood IMO of at least a few more in the near future. The e-mail alert system and the website are orders of magnitude better. Etc., etc. Again, my report had little or nothing to do with accomplishing any of that. Written study materials aren't of much help on this stuff. You pretty much have to do it and sink or swim. So IDCC management is still in OJT in this area, and I wouldn't give them less than a "B" in that regard. Also, the analysts are putting them through a cram course at the moment and my gut tells me they are not going to fail and could very well surprise us to the upside.
Have a great day.
