Mark Evans

The Nortel Two-Step

Sometimes you wonder if Nortel can't win for trying. The company finally manages to convince itself its 2005 financial results are ready for public consumption (a positive development), then it goes and releases them late in the day on Friday after everyone's headed home for the weekend. (a negative development). From an optics perspective, it gives the impression that Nortel is trying to hide something because the only reason to issue a major press release late in the day on a Friday is if you want to avoid attention from investors and the media. Of course, Nortel will likely claim it received SEC clearance and/or that its paper work was completed Friday afternoon so it had no choice but to follow disclosure rules and release the financial results. Maybe this is true but this isn't the first time Nortel has utilized the Friday afternoon “trick” to release financial news. If Nortel - and CEO Mike Zafirovski - are at all interested in regaining the confidence of investors and analysts, they need to try to appear as if they are being as straightforward and transparent as possible. Issuing a press release to disclose financial results that should have come out a few months ago is not the way to do it.