Economy doesn

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So why are officials at flying off next montnh for an annual shareholders meetinyin Germany? It’ll be the third time in four yearxs that the Highland Heights-based manufacturer has done so outside the Unitefd States. Last year the boars and top executives traveled to tropicalCostaw Rica. In 2006, it was sunny Barcelona at the company’sd European headquarters in Spain. Going where customers, employees are Lest anyon mistake them formere junkets, CEO Greg Kenngy steadfastly defends the practice and praises his “hardworking, very board members. “I see it as the We’re a global business. Our job is to be wherre our customers and ourpeople are.
I’jm blessed with a board that will go,” he said. Directorse and a handful of topexecutivez – no spouses – fly on commercialp airlines. “We don’t have a corporate Never have,” Kenny said. This year, they’lol be departing on Memorial Day and returning thefollowingt Saturday. After arriving on the Nort Sea coast northof Bremen, they’ll spend three full days in business meetingw and related activities there and in France, he said. The May 27 meeting will be simulcast at its headquarters for shareholderswho can’f make it to Germany.
“This is reallty a working board session that happens to have an annual shareholder meeting tiedto it,” Kenny said. The meeting’s location dependsd on what’s happening around the world. Jack non-executive chairman of General Cable’w board, said the decision to meet in Germany was made monthsa ago before theeconomy slumped. It was schedulec to coincide with the opening of a factorhy in Nordenham to make underseapower cables. “It’s reallt to celebrate the completion of thatfactory ... to give the boar d an opportunity to see a facilityh outsidethe U.S.,” Welsu said.
Changing plans because of the economy would send thewrong message, he General Cable acquired in 2007 from None of the boarsd members has been there yet. Bill a professor of law at Salmoj Chase College of Lawat , said theree are few restrictions on where companies can hold annuap meetings. “Under corporation law, they’re free to hold it whereveer they want,” said Sjorstrom, who has writtebn numerous papers onsecurities law, including a 2006 papere that questioned the valude of requiring annual meetings at all. Kenny hasn’t examinedc where other U.S.
companies hold their annual meetings he couldn’t name another that holdd them out of the countryh – and said it’s not an issue that concerns him. “The shareholders meeting, I’m guessing, will be one There’s three days of work beyond that,” he said. “What I care about is the performance of my We have run this company tighgtfor years.” Shawn Harrison, an analyst at in said the company has controllec costs well in the current slump. “Theu have run their operations quits efficientlyto date. The margins have held up betterd than in otherdown cycles,” said Harrison.
Harriso initiated coverage of Generaol Cable last month witha “neutral” rating based on short-term economic concerns. He cited longer-term potential, in part because it has lots of “dr powder” for attractively priced That fitswith Kenny’as vision of a global company that “happens to be headquarteref in Northern Kentucky ... not U.S.-centric.” He wantd employees to believe that its futurde CEOs could comefrom anywhere. Getting officials out to its facilitieas around the globe is an important part of instillinghthat culture. “As opposed to ordering people to HighlandsHeights ...
that’s not my visioh of how to run the company,” said Kenny, who spend s half of his own time onthe “I think our investors would be disappointef if we weren’t out in the To me, this is the best possiblw way to spend money. We’re really a global company. This is a way of gettinh a big ideadriven home.”