>>> Shining a light on an edge of ethical/legal business has a good chance of making their revenue dry up fast.
Any previous case ? Having a hard time believing that a stock is driven by ethical issues
Any previous case ? Having a hard time believing that a stock is driven by ethical issues
There are plenty of examples.
See the recent case of Papa John's. The stock imploded by 50% over a few months in an ethical scandal related to the founder (John Schnatter) saying the N word among other things.
Schnatter had criticized the NFL's handling of the kneeling protests that went on in relation to Colin Kaepernick, saying that it had hurt Papa John's business (they were a prominent sponsor of the NFL). Schnatter took a lot of flack for that criticism.
On a call with Papa John's marketing firm, he said this:
> "Colonel Sanders called blacks n-----s," he said, complaining that Sanders had never received backlash, according to Forbes.
> Forbes also reported that Schnatter recalled growing up in Indiana, where he said people used to drag black people from their trucks until they died. Forbes reported that Schnatter's comments were intended to demonstrate his stance against racism, but that people on the call were offended by them.
Schnatter as the founder, and largest shareholder, was forced out of the company. Papa John's sales dropped for the first time in 14 years and they slid into losing money after being consistently profitable throughout their history.
Papa John's was tied up with the NFL in a marketing arrangement, that involved them being the official pizza company sponsor for the league. That arrangement was ended in the months following all of this. Papa John's same store sales promptly nose dived as their public perception was tarnished (they tried numerous promotions to prop that up and it all failed).
In total they lost about 15% of their sales. The company removed several executives and has been working to stop the decline plus repair their brand (they brought in Shaq in a prominent way as one example, he has sparred with Schnatter a few times verbally and Schnatter continues to run his mouth about the situation publicly).
Maybe if they had implemented a strict "no comment" policy and just hunkered down and be completely ignored it, people would have forgotten about it.
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/craigsilverman/google-b...