CEOs punked on Wall Street calls

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Kai Ryssdal: This final note: we know financial information can be confusing. But people who ought to know better have been a little perplexed themselves. CEOs and other top executives have been getting punked on earnings conference calls. They’re the quarterly rituals companies go through with Wall Street analysts. The analysts get a code and dial in to ask question. The executives speak without trying to say too much about profits or losses. But lately a prankster identifying himself only as as Joe Harrick from Gutterman Research has been tossing out some doozies.

JOE HARRIK: Can you provide some more color as to what you’re doing to reduce the price per hectolitre?

LEO KIELY: Can you hold a second on that?

The guy who needed a second to figure out price per hectoliter? Leo Kiely, president and CEO of the Molson/Coors Brewing company. Gutterman Research? No such thing.