You can go to the best business schools in the world but all of that won’t matter as it does not teach you on how to handle your funders when in times of crisis. This is the case for HTC who had just held out an annual meeting outside of a hotel in Taipei.
Clearly, investors of the Taiwanese company are not happy at seeing the company making a loss. This isn’t something new as HTC’s shares have been on a decline since 2009. By today, the value of HTC shares has gone down by 90% since it topped 3 years ago.
However, things got confusing as despite the massive loss made by HTC, they still splurge to keep their investors happy. During last year’s annual meeting, HTC gave out free smartphones to every attendee.
The news broke out and spread like wildfire which explains the 2,000 attendees that participated in this year’s meeting. Amazingly, it was a full house. Imagine giving away the HTC One M8 to each of the participators. That would cost HTC about $1.2million.
This is ridiculous. It is as if HTC is trying to bribe their investors to stay happy and keep the trust on them as they celebrate the losses they’ve made. Then again, it is only a rumour. This year, investors were really furious but at least they get some free bread and beverages for it.
As for the CEO, Peter Chou hopes that HTC will show some sign of improvement in two or three quarters from now.
