Cleveland-Cliffs stock dips as CEO rips Wall Street analysts
Lourenco Goncalves, CEO of iron-ore producer Cleveland-Cliffs, was in no mood to mince words Friday during a conference call with Wall Street analysts to discuss the company's latest earnings.
"You guys should resign for your lack of knowledge of things," the CEO said. "You are a disaster. You are an embarrassment to your parents."
Then he got personal.
"We are going to screw this guy so badly that I don't believe that they will be able to only resign. They will have to commit suicide," said Goncalves, Cleveland-Cliffs' CEO since 2014.
The harsh words are reminiscent of a confrontational performance in May by Elon Musk, when the Tesla CEO blasted what he call "boring, bonehead" questions about the electric car maker during a conference call with stock analysts.
Goncalves's rant came after the mining company reported a third-quarter profit of nearly $438 million, slightly below expectations. It had revenue $741.8 million, beating analysts' forecast of $722.5 million.
Not content to blast the profession as a whole, Goncalves singled out Goldman Sachs senior analyst Matthew Korn for writing in a report on Friday that Cleveland-Cliffs had "modestly missed estimates," according to one published account.
"Matthew Korn from Goldman Sachs, you can run, but you can't hide," he said.
He then promised to touch base with Korn -- who apparently was not on the call -- at a Goldman Sachs conference, and suggested he bring along an unidentified colleague who studies commodities for protection.
"It will be bad no matter what, but it will be a lot worse if you're alone," Goncalves said.
Cleveland-Cliffs said much of what had been written about the call had been "misinterpreted," with a spokesperson emailing that the company's CEO was largely irked at short sellers shorting his company's stock.
Goldman Sachs said in an email that the investment banking firm declined to comment.
Shares of the company ended down 43 cents, or 3.8 percent, at $11.05. Still, even after the end-of-the-week decline, the company's shares have surged more than 50 percent this year.