Recent news of Colgan Air, Inc., an operating company owned by Pinnacle Airlines Corporation (NASDAQ:PNCL) prompted us to consider the intangible asset of safety and the financial consequences of the reputation arising.

On 12 February, flight 3407 from Newark to Buffalo crashed while on an approach to Runway 23. A total of 50 people were killed. This loss of lives in Colgan Air Flight 3407 the greatest loss of lives on a domestic American flight due to an accident since 2001. Then on 12 May, flight 3260 from Newark to Buffalo lost a wheel after landing on Runway 23. There were no injuries and the passengers deplaned normally. The next day, the NTSB began its hearings on the 12 February crash.

Colgan Air operates under the brand of three iconic companies: Continental Connection, United Express and US Airways Express. It has been involved in two well publicized safety incidents. From an intangible asset perspective, what are the reputations of Pinnacle, Continental, United, and US Airways and is there any evidence that the two events had an impact?

We turned to the Steel City Re Intangible Asset (corporate reputation) Index for insight into stakeholder’s perceptions. As shown in the chart below, the relative rise in Pinnacle’s index ranking ends abruptly twice in a temporal association with the safety events described above. Also of note is that Pinnacle’s index shows a progressive drop -- ongoing reputation erosion – for the 8 months prior to the February crash. Financially, over this period, Pinnacle has underperformed the median of its 20 peers by 22%. Index EWMA volatility is very high at 5 log orders.
 


Among the 21 companies tracked and ranked in this index, all four companies -- Pinnacle, US Airways (NYSE:LCC), United Airlines (NASDAQ:UAUA), and Continental Airlines (NYSE:CAL) -- rank in the bottom quartile as of 15 May 2009. In the period following the 12 February crash, and measuring rank on a percentile scale, Pinnacle’s rank dropped 20%, US Airways dropped 15%, Continental dropped 10%, and United was unchanged. Other members of the bottom quartile are Jet Blue (NASDAQ:JBLU) and American Airlines (NYSE:AMR).

The membership of the top quartile among 21 publicly traded airlines as of 15 May comprises Copa Holdings (NYSE:CPA), Allegiant Travel (NASDAQ:ALGT), LAN Airlines (NYSE:LAN), Ryanair Holdings (NASDAQ:RYAAY), and Southwest Airlines (NYSE:LUV).

"Mixed feelings" is what one describes the emotional response upon learning that one's much hated in-law just drove off a cliff in the beloved family BMW. And so it is with today's note. There is nothing good to say about the increasing pandemic potential of the current influenza outbreak, other than the attention Intangible Asset Finance Society member and crisis simulations expert Chris Hatzi and his firm, Crisis Simulations, Inc., are receiving from the media.

Safety and security are ephemeral intangible assets that are central to corporate reputation. Many industries are experiencing the economic consequences of fear arising from a perceived lack of those two in the face of the flu and pirates. (See my previous blog on pirates). Chris and his colleagues at CSI have developed a unique training system -- lifelike and yet cash sparing -- to help stakeholders train for managing events such as the one looming over the horizon.

As Chris notes, simulation training will not prevent the event; but it will contribute greatly to an organization's -- or even a nation's -- resilience. You can see a media clip on Dr. Hatzi et. al. here: http://crisissimulations.com/_swf/katu.html

The past week, Intellectual Asset Management magazine, the official publication partner of the Society, has been hosting a debate on intangible asset valuation. As Joff Wild, editor of IAM magazine describes it,

One subject area that always seems to generate a large number of reader comments is valuation. Witness, for example, the fantastic thread tha developed following a post I wrote back in January entitled Intangible values collapse - the old 70% to 80% claim is now officially dead and buried. Among those taking part in that conversation - indeed the man who indirectly inspired it - was Nir Kossovsky, executive secretary of the Intangible Asset Finance Society and CEO of Steel City Re. Now Nir has written in to question some of the points made by Pat Sullivan and Alexander Wurzer in their IAM article on IP/intangible valuation myths, which I recently previewed on the blog.

The Intangible Asset Finance Society has weighed in on the debate along with our colleagues at the Athena Alliance, with classic language and arguments from the school of American Pragmatism that reflect the financial market principles we support. To follow the debate on the IAM site, click here. To read the comments of Ken Jarboe, President of the Athena Alliance on the Alliance blog, Intangible Economy, click here.

Tweens and adolescents often playfully disparage their meals with monikers such as "mystery meat" or "tuna surprise." While this is good fun, it is something quite different when the CEO of a major food products company similarly characterizes his company's products. David McKay of Kellogg Company (NYSE: K) raised a few eyebrows when he testified last month before the House Committeee on Energy and Commerce that Kellogg relied on third parties to assure food safety. We wonder what thoughts ran through the minds of financial analysts who knew at that time that competitors, such as Nestle, conducted their own supplier inspections thereby signalling to their stakeholders that food safety is a core business process and critical intangible/reputation asset.

And while it has been a rough time as of late with Salmonella in peanuts and pistachios, the industry as a whole is settling down to a steady state of intangible asset volatilty. So it piques our interest when H. J. Heinz Company (NYSE: HNZ), a company that has made reputation enhancement a key business strategy, experiences a sudden drop in the Steel City Re Intangible Asset Finance (Corporate Reputation) Index.

The chart below shows Heinz. As seen in the upper chart, among the 56 companies comprising the Food Products Group, Heinz has ranked in the top 95th percentile earlier this year but has been declining and is now at the 83rd percentile. In terms of return on equity, this past year it has outperformed the median of its peers by 2.6% - the peer group having lost a median of about 27% over the past 12 months. As seen in the lower chart, Heinz's exponentially weighted moving average IA index volatility began this last six month period at under two orders of magnitude and is now approaching three orders.


Yet while Heinz is showing a reputation decline and increasing volatilty, the industry as a whole is showing increasing stability. In the upper half of the chart below, the variance amond different companies in the peer group is leveling off at about 0.25. Furthermore, among all 5000 companies tracked by the IA index, the median IA index value of the peer group is rising to about the 72nd percentile. Last, the lower half of the chart below shows that the % of value at the Heinz Company ascribable to intangible assets has been increasing and now stands at about 120% while the median fraction in the peer group has been decling slightly to about 60%.



How is all this to be interpreted: decreasing IA index, increasing EMWA IA index volatilty, increasing IA fraction?

We believe its all about reputation. We believe that the extraordinarily high level of intangible asset value comprising some 120% of the company's market value (implying a negative book value) means stakeholders are relying greatly on extra-financial information to set a fair market price. Stakeholders are going with their gut, and gut is driven by reputation -- the impression stakeholders form on management's stewardship of a firm's intangible assets. The increasing volatilty associated with a decline in the IA index suggests to us that the impression stakeholders are receiving from these extra-fiancial channels is increasingly less uniform. Higher stock price volatility and increasing cost of both equity and debt will be among the earliest pains Heinz may experience.

Not convinced? Google search the stock ticker for Heinz, Kellogg, General Mills (NYSE:GIS), and Ralcorp (NYSE:RAH) - food product companies whose IA index values as of 6 April were .83, .90, .94 and .96 respectively - and the term "reputation." The hit counts are 504, 484, 543, and 1950. Did we mention that Ralcorp also had a peanut recall issue, yet their EWMA IA index volatility is decreasing and their ROE for the year is 23% above the peer-group median?

Dear Reader,

Beginning this week and with surprising regularity, the Society will post a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the intangible asset management implications of a current news story involving a publicly traded company. These analyses will draw on IA index data published by Steel City Re. Periodically, the Society will also post announcements to supplement the monthly news alerts, the quarterly newsletter, and the bimonthly publication in IAM magazine.

As always, the Society welcomes your comments and feedback.

Nir Kossovsky
Executive Secretary