Day 7 – Laundry list.

At night in a big city, you do very strange things. Tonight, I am in New York City, having spent yesterday in Boston seeing the “big dogs” (Fidelity, Putnam, etc.). Cleaning out my briefcase upon arrival here I found, for reasons unknown to me, laundry tickets from the Hyatt Regency Denver and the Radisson Plaza Minneapolis. I have lined them up alongside the one from the Omni Berkshire from which this is written. In the process, I think I have discovered a business opportunity.

The price of laundering a shirt in Denver is $3.20. In Minneapolis, it is $3.50. The Omni Berkshire informs you that their price for standard service in the laundering and pressing of a shirt is $10 (there is a higher price for “Shirts – Fancy” of $12.00). In Denver, the dry cleaning of a two-piece suit is $10.85. The price rises to $12.50 in Minneapolis, but in New York, the bill will be $24.00, plus an additional 15% for overnight service. In all, the price of laundering or dry cleaning one shirt, one two-piece suit, one pair of socks, and one raincoat, plus having a second suit pressed but not dry cleaned, is $34.05 in Denver, $39.50 in Minneapolis, and a staggering $93.50 in New York.

Last week, United Air Lines offered an special internet fare of $139 from New York to Denver. By my calculation, an enterprising individual can collect just six raincoats from occupants of the Omni Berkshire, offer a dollar off of the hotel rate, fly to Denver, drop off the raincoats with the Hyatt, pick them up the next day and return to New York with the trip entirely paid for and $14 to spare. With a few suitcases, an entrepreneur could, well, clean up.

But I also note that there are regional variations. The Hyatt Regency Denver, alone among the three hotels, has a category for “jumpsuits/coveralls” ($10.50). There is apparently enough of a demand that the Radisson will launder your “leggings” for $5.00. And the Omni Berkshire will attend to your “jogging suit” for just $20.00. I think this is what is called “being taken to the cleaners.”

And, what did we do before cell phones? I am a late convert, having long been annoyed by their ringing in restaurants, elevators, and theaters. I have grudgingly carried one for the past year, used it sparingly, and generally turned it on only when I wanted to make a call. On this road show, however, I have come to see my cell phone as an extension of myself (did you know “Nokia” is Finnish for “little hand”?) On a road show, you are utterly cut off from the world for the hour when you are presenting the company’s story. You are on stage and any interruption, especially the ringing of a cell phone, will break the rhythm.

Once we leave a meeting, however, we are all on our phones. No sooner are we out of sight of our hosts than we are checking messages, calling ahead, returning calls. We are simultaneously out of the office and in it; the fifteen minutes between meetings a frenzy of punching numbers and making notes. When my battery indicator on my phone this afternoon got down to one bar, I became irrationally fearful that I would miss a critical call. Twenty years ago, I went to Australia on business for three weeks. During that time I called my office exactly twice. Upon my return, I patiently returned all calls, but found that those over a week old had resolved themselves in my absence. What has changed? My importance (unlikely) or the ease of returning those calls? I will be interested in seeing if my cell phone habit endures once this road show is over.

Notes: If business takes you to San Diego, I can highly recommend the Marriott Suites at the corner of 7th and A Streets. These are intelligently designed rooms that provide ample space to spread out in, a separate bedroom, and a bath with shower stall. The hotel occupies the 22nd through the 27th floor of an office building, so the views are excellent. But, I say “business” because of the location. This is the heart of downtown San Diego, the tariff a pricey (by San Diego standards) $199. There’s nothing within walking distance except office buildings and, at 9:30 p.m. when I got in, the streets were deserted, nary a restaurant open. If pleasure takes you to San Diego, stay in La Jolla or out on Harbor Island.

The Omni Berkshire is a pleasant hotel that attempts to cultivate an air of graciousness with a high level of service (there are huge bouquets of flowers in the lobby). The room is large by New York standards, with three kinds of marble in the bathroom. But there is also a plainness – no art of any kind (just two mirrors), and the wallpaper is a neutral cream-yellow that will offend no one. The chair at which I am sitting has a hard yellow plastic seat. Still, I’ve been given a copy of the “Robb Report” to peruse, and an opportunity to buy a can (yes, a can) of vacuum packed “hand-made” chocolate chip cookies for just $4.50. For $279 a night, you ought to get better (alas, the Palace was sold out).

Ron, I too have come to flinch when I hear the term “European-style hotel.” The Heathman had that kind of creakiness to it, and the lobby was actually smaller than miniscule. Your description was wonderful; Fodors should pay you for the right to use it in some future publication. Cherie, the Hyatt Embarcadero is indeed the one to which I referred. Perhaps I’m drawn as much to the hotel’s urban ambience and the way it is connected to the rest of Embarcadero Center, a development that looks as good today as it did 25 years ago when it was built (to see it when it was new, rent the movie “Time After Time”). My last stay in San Francisco, I was booked into the new Marriott by the convention center, a building so aggressively ugly that I checked out on principle. Owen, your own epistles on New York state are better than anything I could come up with, but thank you for the compliment all the same.

Odysseus - Your love/hate relationship with cell phones and their more noxious characteristics (nearly all of which are attributable to the users) is one I can well relate to. I happen to enjoy my occasional trips to Denver and will appreciate the opportunity to get there more frequently - expect to see me in NYC collecting raincoats for one of my already planned cleaning and cash collection expeditions! It's amazing that the Hyatt Regency in Denver offers such a price for cleaning shirts. I was dinged nearly $7 to clean a single shirt when in Omaha Nebraska last summer - and this at a humble Hampton Inn! Looking forward to your next installment...

Odysseus, your stories and perceptions are terrific. My wife and I are almost sad to know that all road shows lead to home, but I doubt if you’re upset at the prospect…
But to keep faith with your namesake, we wish you’d describe (with concessions to maintain anonymity of course) some of the cyclopean or other native folk you encounter during the presentations, amidst the dogs and ponies. Have you had to lash yourself to any masts, or do the seat belts suffice? Any of your travel mates now in the truffle hunting business?
We also hope you’ll do a follow-up eventually so we’ll know how it turned out. Sail on…

Cell phones are the umbilicus of the business world. We only take one and plug it into one of the cars when we are on the road. We no longer even turn on our beepers. When the hospital needed my (then Resident) husband, they used to set off his beeper. Once they did this during a romantic interlude in Malibu. We had to drive to a Ranger Station to find a pay phone only to find out that the Chief Resident only was testing to see if the beeper was indeed turned on. Since then, beepers are only for the idle; cell phones are only for travel. For Emergencies....there is the Emergency Room. Most of our Cell Phone Calls are Wrong Numbers.

Day 8 – Chicken for lunch

I know what I’m going to have for lunch tomorrow. It’s the same thing I had for lunch in Chicago, in Minneapolis, in San Francisco, in Los Angeles, in Boston, and in New York this afternoon: chicken. Specifically, I will have a chicken breast plus the meaty part of the wing. It will be served on a bed of rice, probably with asparagus on the side. I have dined on this concoction seven times on this trip; it is called, “the Road Show Special.” Only the details vary: a scattering of won-tons as a garnish and a sweet glaze in San Francisco; rice pilaf in Chicago, wild rice in New York. You come to appreciate these subtleties on a road show.

A representative of a firm with money to invest can take his or her choice of two or three dozen road show lunches any day of the week in any major city. But who would want to dine on chicken, rice, and asparagus day after day? In the room next to ours at the Palace (yes, that Palace), there was another road show going on; that meeting broke up before ours did, and so as I walked by I noted the trays of dishes being cleared: chicken, rice, and asparagus. Do the coordinators of these road shows even get a choice? Or is it, “Road Show Special for 25,” with an automatic understanding of what will appear. Perhaps tomorrow I will be surprised. But I’m not counting on it.

* * * * *

There are dozens of guides to understanding mutual funds but, to the best of my knowledge, not a single guide to accurately predicting mutual fund managers and how they tend to run their offices. In Denver, some $200 billion of funds (including such well-known names as Invesco, Janus, and Berger) are managed out of a series of mostly nondescript, low-rise office buildings within a few blocks of the Cherry Creek mall. At one firm in San Diego, we gave our presentation in a conference room with one side nothing but a wall of glass with a majestic view of the Pacific Ocean a few hundred feet away. Fidelity has sprawled out all over downtown Boston. Presentations are down to such a science that an electronic sign that would be at home in any modern airport keeps tallies of the arrivals, departures, and assigned rooms for companies.

But nothing I have seen on this or any other road show prepared me for the home of one Connecticut money management firm. I have spoken a dozen times with the management of this firm and met one of their analysts at a financial conference. They manage a sizable chunk of money – half a billion dollars – and have an excellent track record. The town in which their office is located is along Connecticut’s Fairfield County “gold coast.” My assumption was that that it was in one of the anonymous office buildings that line I-95. So much for assumptions.

Our driver turned off of I-95 and started heading south. And kept going south along country roads until he reached a tidal cove where we found a clutch of semi-abandoned fishing boats, a run-down bait shop, and an equally run-down house with the kind of multiple additions that a turn-of-the-century house might acquire with the passage of time and generations of owners. Our driver pointed us toward the house, the sign on the front door identified this as a boat brokerage office. We knocked, identified ourselves, and a man in a pair of shorts and a tee shirt (remember, this is Connecticut in February) answered, “do we look like we manage money?” He pointed to the back of the building and said, “upstairs.”

We found the right door (there were several other tenants in this most unlikely of office buildings), went upstairs, and found ourselves in a pack rat’s paradise. Prospectuses were in one teetering pile, research reports in another. A stack of Wall Street Journals, the bottom ones yellowed with age, were in yet a third pile. The Salvation Army would have sternly rejected the furniture. The firm’s owner, attired like Paul Bunyan and bearing some physical resemblance, ushered us up to a third floor “conference room” (actually, the attic with a table and chairs, and the overflow detritus from below).

He and an associate listened intently to the presentation, then peppered us with the most intelligent and thoughtful questions we had heard from any audience. The session lasted an hour and a half versus the hour allotted, yet we were glad to stay. I have subsequently heard they want 10% of the offering, a major commitment for a firm of that size. That time in Connecticut reinforced in me a great deal about not judging firms by their offices, or people by their clothing.

John, you asked about Cyclopean encounters. I have encountered few ogres on this trip; they do not last long in this business. There are several firms that cultivate a “bad boy” image that John McEnroe would envy. In San Francisco, there is a fund manager who has done staggeringly well in his choice of investments. Seeing him, however, is an exercise in frustration for anyone who expects glib generalities to substitute for information. He wants facts, names, and numbers. “A large Japanese customer” will either be named or else the forward momentum of the conversation will come to an abrupt halt while this manager explores why a company is so anal retentive that it cannot name its customer. In New York, we met with a manager of a very well-known fund whose shtick is that everything the company says is incredulous. “You think you can grow how much?? No way!” And so everything must be explained in detail. An unprepared company is shown to be just that. Acting in that manner weeds out the weak stories. So, sorry, no Cyclops.

* * * *

Notes: I would be grateful to anyone who can explain what the difference is between a “clarifying bar” and soap. The Omni Berkshire has festooned my bathroom with multiple three-ounce bars of this stuff which, incidentally, comes from the “Institute Swiss.”

Ody

Thank you for your very interesting and intelligent posts. Please continue to contribute here.

A clarifying bar is haute soap, which befits your accomodation. I believe it is supposed to "clarify" your skin by gently exfoliating the dead cells. Use it with abandon and without fear.

You jave just identified what physicians call INDUSTRIAL CHICKEN. It is the staple of any medical conference held in the medical center. Given the choice, with outside caterers or a fine establishment, absolutely any other meat or seafood would be substituted. It is a step UP, however, from MYSTERY MEAT, which is what is served up in the physician's staff lounges around the country. This substance is identified by the glossy sauce in any variety of colors. We refer to this as EATING AT THE TROUGH.

A clarifying bar is non-soap that is intended to clean without stripping your face the way soap is likely to. It is also a way for the hotel to charge she-she prices in a politically-correct fashion. Sleepy Bear gives you SOAP; Chateau d'Chissay gives you a clarifying bar and a packet of Van Cleef & Arpels bath gelee. -Great Report as usual. -Cher

Day 9 -- Room service

On a road show, your day begins with a wake-up call that may be as early as 5:30 a.m. and is never later than 6 o’clock. The day ends only when the last appointment has asked the final question, which is seldom earlier than 6 p.m. For example, our first appointment this morning was at 7:30; our last ended just after 7:15 p.m. In between, we sandwiched in eight one-on-one sessions with key institutional investors, each one timed to the minute as to travel, security (allow 10 minutes if you’re going up into the World Trade Center), and even rest room breaks. Then, we sped (a relative term in New York City) to catch the Metroliner to Philadelphia. Such a schedule, kept up day after day, leaves little desire to go out for a “big dinner,” though the offer is always there from the investment bankers. And so instead, if we eat dinner at all, we invariably end up ordering from room service.

If you have ever perused the room service menu in a first class hotel, you have doubtless been enchanted by the promise of haute cuisine served in your room by a tuxedoed waiter, perhaps even imagining strolling violins and fine wine. Friends, it isn’t that way. Tonight, I am at the Four Seasons in Philadelphia, a beautiful hotel if ever there was one (and at $305 a night, it ought to be very nice). In theory, I could dine on a meal including Hudson Valley Foie Gras and Rabbit Rilettes, Stone Fruit Compote and Frisee Lettuce, and that’s just one appetizer. But I’ve learned that what is served in a five-diamond restaurant on the first floor and what comes up the elevator to the fifth floor is likely to be very different.

Last night, I did succumb to dinner in my room at the Omni Berkshire. The fish (I could not face chicken for both lunch and dinner) tasted like twice-microwaved cardboard, or at least what I imagine twice-microwaved cardboard would taste like it I ever took it into my head to voluntarily prepare such a thing. I ordered a room-service pizza my first night at the Omni. I am a big fan of pizza, yet I left half of a “personal size” pizza go uneaten. (I have apparently forgotten about that ‘once burned twice shy’ dictum.) I do not know why room service food is so poor. It is certainly delivered elegantly; my personal pizza came on a linen-covered tray with sturdy silver knives and forks, and a rose. There was even a finger bowl. The waiter did not sneer; he pulled the cover off of the pizza as though I had ordered the Bouillabaisse de Poissons, and he gave my $6 bottle of Heienken the same deference he would have shown the $128 bottle of Babcock “Grand Cuvee” Santa Barbara chardonnay.

It pains me to think that all over America, there are men and women tonight who are dining in their hotel rooms on glorified goat food. But we either went without dinner or else ate poorly. We didn’t get in a cab and try that fabulous restaurant because a) we’re too tired to expend the energy, b) we lost the clipping about the restaurant or its chef (it’s in a file folder marked “restaurants” on our desk back in the office), c) we have convinced ourselves that a restaurant that good would never take us on two hours’ notice, and d) we have no intention of walking into a restaurant alone, drawing what we imagine are pitying stares from the couples in the room.

* * * * *
Notes: The Four Seasons in Philadelphia is truly a worthy travel destination. My room is tastefully furnished with considerable thought as to décor. It is a delight to be in, even for the few hours I will be able to enjoy it.

Traveler and Cherie, thank you for telling me what a "clarifying bar" is. I think at least part of my concern was its company of origin. I could readily have used such a product from "The Swiss Institute," "Institute Suisse," or "Institute Helvetia," but "Institute Swiss" had a unnerving quality to it. I feel better now.

Our handlers tell us the road show is going well. We have two days remaining; Friday in Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore, and next Tuesday in London. My final entry will be from London -- if I can cause this cantankerous modem to connect. Otherwise, it will be from my office upon my return. My thanks to all who have read this, and especially to those who have responded with their own observations.

I can tell from your writing style and travel sense that you were perhaps an Eagle Scout and therefore will survive the wild until London. I cannot, however, vouch for the food once there, and coupled with room service.....yikes!(My English ancestors will forgive me.)

Thanks for the thread Odysseus. I am enjoying reading your perspective on a form of travelling I hope to never experience. In a week of high speed movement from place to place the only roses you have had time to smell are on your room service carts. The only people you have been able to interact with are just like yourself(that is not meant to be offensive). I hope you get time to unwind when you arrive home. The idea of room service in London brings to mind a plate of beans, sausage and chips with a side of cold mushy peas served on a silver platter.

To the top for Mark

Waiting to hear from Odysseus...

OK, Odysseus, I'm worried about you. Where are you?

If this is Tuesday, it must be London.

Odysseus:
Your Roadshow-Diary Junkies are waiting for a report! Did you remember your Burberrys Brolly?

I came late to the postings and so got to print/read straight through to the 18th, but ... but then what??? I hope you do Baltimore, my home town. What fun it has been to read such an erudite journal. Thanks for all the time and effort.

Day 11 – Chess

At some level, a Road Show is a chess game, with the company management playing the role of the pawns. We are moved by a hand we cannot see according to a schedule that comes faxed to us each evening. We occasionally balk but, in the end, we go where we are told.

And now, we are in London. According to the rules, each side pays its own way while on the road show. But it is the investment bankers who make the reservations, provide the tickets, and arrange for the transportation from site to site. It is part and parcel of the chess game.

For this, the last stop, we are ensconced at The Berkeley, one of the most luxurious hotels in London (The “luxury four” are all part of the Savoy Group and include The Berkley, The Connaught, Claridge’s, and The Savoy). Friends, going forward, it will necessary to divide the world’s hotels into two categories: those that provide monogrammed slippers for their guests, and those that do not. The Berkeley falls into the first category; it is a touch I have encountered nowhere else in a lifetime of traveling. This is a “junior suite” with all of the trimmings, a canopied bed, a wide terrace set with tables and chairs. The walls are of lemony silk, the heavy drapes a dark green crushed velvet. The prints on the walls are originals. It is a wonderful room, a treat for the pawns, arranged by the chess masters.

For this, the final leg, Penelope was encouraged to join her Odysseus, and so we have been here since Saturday morning, having flown out in a blinding East Coast snow storm. Our room was ready upon our arrival, having been reserved since the previous evening. We have breakfasted on fresh raspberries and cream before setting out for a day of touring via tube and foot (we have declined the offer of a car and driver). It has been three days of immersion in one of the world’s most pleasant cities, and possibly my favorite world capital.

This morning (Tuesday) the road show began again in earnest. A breakfast presentation, four one-on-ones, and a luncheon presentation to a large group, held in the plush City office of our investment banker (poached salmon replaced the chicken for this, the final lunch on the final day). Throughout the day, we have talked about “the book.” In investment banking, “the book” is everything. This is the record of who has ordered stock for the offering. After each presentation, a salesman from one of the underwriters circles back for feedback, looking for “an expression of interest.” Since last Thursday, these salesmen have been going to their accounts looking for orders, called “writing a ticket.” The goal is not to fill the book, it is to fill the book several times over. Our book is full, we in fact have more than ten fund managers that have each asked for 10% of the offering. Our investment bankers are fretting that, because of last week’s East Coast storm coupled with the President’s Day holiday, we have lost momentum. The five hour time difference adds to the tension.

But then, at about 4 p.m. in London, we are done. The last presentation is completed. My laptop has been powered down for the last time, our props put away. We have nothing to do but wait for The Pricing Call. A car drives me back to The Berkeley. I collapse in bed to write these notes.

Epilogue

We have had a fine dinner at Vong, The Berkeley’s very upscale Thai-French fusion restaurant. The final move of the chess game is underway. It is called The Pricing Call.

The call is held in a cramped room; little more that a closet in the hotel. But this small room has a speakerphone, which will be necessary for all of us to participate. In addition, we have a cell phone with which we can hold conversations for just “our side” (pawns, if prepared, get privacy to talk things over).

We are told we have done a wonderful job. We have seen more than 120 institutional accounts including 58 one-on-one meetings. A large percentage of those accounts, and especially those with whom we met in one-on-ones, want stock. But there is “pricing sensitivity.” At the beginning of the road show, it was assumed the offering would be at one price. But now, we have done such a good job that the assumed price is higher, and this has caused some accounts to say that they are interested, but not above a certain price. We are given the names of the institutional investors that want stock, and it is indeed a blue chip list. These investors are the kind that will hold our stock for a long time; they will in fact add to their position in the open market.

The pricing call goes on for over an hour. There are several side conversations via the cell phone. Finally, at 10:33 p.m. Greenwich Mean Time, we have an agreement. There are congratulations all the way around. The phones go silent.

We repair back to The Berkeley’s bar, where the investment banker who has traveled with us on this leg of the trip treats us to a round of very rare, very good single malt scotches. We savor them, secure in the knowledge that ultimately we will get the bill.

Notes: I have encountered the creepiest exhibition in London and it has nothing to do with Madame Tussaurd’s or the Tower of London. In Harrod’s, one set of escalators have been fitted out, top to bottom, in the style of Dynastic Egypt. As you descend through the floors, there is a sense of going into a tomb somewhere in the Valley of the Kings. But at the bottom of this tomb lies not a sarcophagus, but a memorial to “Dodi and Diane.” There are photos, flowers, and a message that links them together for all eternity. Upon encountering this, I fled Harrod’s and made a mental note to return only when the Fayed family sells the chain.

I am grateful to all who have elected to comment on this diary. Owen, I cannot call up this file without seeing that initial misspelling, which indeed was a case of Microsoft Word deciding that I, a mere human, must surely have meant “right” instead of “rite.” I can get that last word to say only by enclosing it in quotes.

Rand, your comment that the only roses I had time to smell were on my room service cart was both literally and metaphorically true. What is worse, on the pricing call we were given specific feedback about accounts where we made an especially good impresssion. For at least two of those accounts, I could not conjure up a single image of having visited them.

Beth, we did get to Baltimore on that final Friday. The snow/sleet line kept shifting throughout the day. But we made it, for all of an hour and a half.

Again, thank you all for your support. In the original, at the end of his journey, Odysseus placed an anchor over his shoulder and began walking inland. He stopped walking only when no one could identify the object he carried. This Odysseus now has a souvenir prospectus, but instead of carrying it from place to place, it will go into his briefcase and then to a file.

Odysseus has gone back to work.

I am in awe. I'll keep all this info for my travel files, and sometime I'll re-read it to try to understand investment banking et al. This was/is a wonderful posting, thank you. I hope you are sleeping now.

BRAVO!! Let us know when you are showcased on Amazon.com!!

It has truly been a pleasure, Odysseus. I'm sure you realize that I wasn't nitpicking on the word usage, just expressing my bemusement at the plight that our modern tools have created. I turned off the so-called grammar checker immediately when it was introduced but continue to rely (for better or worse) on spell check. How odd that I still find myself unable to accurately proof read from a CRT or laptop, yet immediately spot my own errors with the trusty printed page in hand. I just finished reading a new book that those with an interest in the nature of our current Internet/IPO/E-business/VC boom will find intriguing. Written by Michael Lewis, entitled "The New New Thing", it's the tale of Jim Clark, who founded Silicon Graphics, left it to start Netscape, founded Healtheon (now Healtheon/Web MD) and has since gone on to begin mycfo.com. His story is one of passion, personal commitment, wackiness, vision and stubbornness. It bears relevance here due to the detailed description of a road show mounted in the first (and initially unsuccessful) attempt to take Healtheon public. The author doesn't hold a candle to Odysseus' sense of style but it's a good read, none the less.