Read all about it
The Internet has revolutionized much of our world, including the way reporters cover public companies. This week, I wrote stories about two Oklahoma companies that are going public, which means they are issuing shares for the first time to be traded on a major stock exchange.
Although we already knew both companies — Oklahoma City’s OGE Enogex Partners and Tulsa’s Williams Pipeline Partners – were planning initial public offerings, this week’s newsworthy events each occurred late in the day. Typically companies about to issue stock for the first time refuse to make public comments to the media citing the so-called “quiet period” (although many business reporters think the executives are demonstrating an abundance of caution.)
That sent me scrambling to the Web site of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission to read the companies’ updated registration forms that describe the IPOs in great detail. And that level of detail provides its own problems. For instance, OGE Enogex Partners’ filing is about 400 pages long, and is written as if a corporate lawyer was seeking to maximize billable hours. Here’s a quick example from page 11:
Our general partner has the right, at a time when there are no subordinated units outstanding and it has received incentive distributions at the highest level to which it is entitled (48%) for each of the prior four consecutive quarters, to reset the initial cash target distribution levels at higher levels based on the distribution at the time of the exercise of the reset election. Following a reset election by our general partner, the minimum quarterly distribution amount will be reset to an amount equal to the average cash distribution amount per common unit for the two quarters immediately preceding the reset election, referred to herein as the “reset minimum quarterly distribution,” and the target distribution levels will be reset to correspondingly higher levels based on the same percentage increases above the reset minimum quarterly distribution amount as in our current target distribution levels.
Don’t bother reading it again; it makes about as much sense the second time through. I generally have about an hour to digest such jargon and produce a story. Of course, one learns which sections of the filings tend to generate the kind of facts needed to write a news story. And it doesn’t hurt that I’m a little bit of an SEC filing wonk.
But if you’re interested in being a business journalist (long hours! free coffee!), speed reading is a marketable skill.
Don Mecoy
Business Writer
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