Do you remember when Richard Pops was the darling of the financial news media? Jim Cramer on Mad Money used to fawn all over Pops whenever he was on CNBC. Now not even Cramer will not have Pops on the show, because the Pops prognostications were always notoriously false and self-serving. When you drag down the credibility of an asshat carnival barker like Jim Cramer that says something! Sometimes the past can really inform the present, so I went back and looked at the last time Pops was on Mad Money. The date was January 9, 2018, and the stock price was $56.64, which was already a huge drop from the high of over $80.00. Richard was promising that 2018 was going to be a "transformational year" for the company. Well...he was right about that, but not in the way he intended. If you want to look at that episode of Mad Money....here is the link. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_B1MNn7puA Let's all try to remember just how bad Rich is at prediction the future when he gives his speech at the NSM this week.
I remember that phrase " transformative year". There was a day where alks rented out the entire campus of bentley university for "alkermes day ". It was essentially a huge pep rally that the waltham office had to attend where pops gave the transformative speech, Jim Robison just got hired so he gave his speech on how big the company is going to be etc. There were 4 or speeches in total from sales, a patient, medical etc. They announced wed be hiring a ton of people and showed the drawings of the new building. After the speeches we all had to go into classrooms based on the group ID on your name tag. In the class you had a "teacher" that was just an employee that volunteered prior to the event. Ours was this huge kiss ass that told us Pops inspired him and it's an honor working for such an amazing place which is alkermes. He then told a story about how the alkermes way moved him, and we all had to go into groups of 4 or 5 and share our stories of inspiration and the best of the group had to share with the class. It was the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Cult like and about 50% of the people took it seriously. They recorded it and streamed it live I think. If you could ever find that video itd probably be amazing now
Wouldn't it be nice...just once...to hear Rich say something like...."Wow, we really made a series of blunders and as the top guy it was mostly my fault. We have learned from our mistakes and we are going to move in a new direction. Now here is my specific plan...". That would be transformational. I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen!
OMG...I love the phrase "asshat carnival barker"! We should put that on a t-shirt and hand it out to all the VPs and Senior VPs singing the praises of Papa Pops here in Dallas!
What does Papa Pops have in common with Donald Trump? Neither of them can ever admit a mistake, or take responsibility when things go wrong. I also think they are both on borrowed time in their jobs!
Actually there is another thing Papa Pops has in common with Donald Trump...they are both working to flatten the curve. Only the curve Papa Pops is trying to flatten is our stock price.
Since we're all at home pretending to work and doing various unnecessary trainings I thought maybe you'd all enjoy a bit of video infotainment. If you have never seen "The Motley Fool" video on how badly Alkermes mismanaged the FDA around 5461 here it is. Leadership blunders like that give you a real insight into why our stock is in the crapper. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51IjaDpxvZY
I looked for the Bentley University "Alkermes Day" video online, but couldn't find it. If anyone can find it and post the link here that would be great.
