'You are messing with the wrong guy': The CEO of an American mining company eviscerates Goldman Sachs analyst and short sellers on earnings call (CLF)

pulse

October 19, 2018 8:56 PM

Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves took time out of his third-quarter earnings call to attack a Goldman Sachs analyst and short sellers.

Cleveland-Cliffs
Watch Cleveland-Cliffs stock trade in real time here

The CEO of the American iron-ore mining company Cleveland-Cliffs took time out from his company's third-quarter earnings call on Friday morning to attack an analyst from Goldman Sachs and short sellers.

CEO Lourenco Goncalves stopped the call and said, "Matthew Korn, if you are in the call, it is still 10:42, why don't you ask a freaking question? I will be happy to answer. Okay."

He was referring to the Goldman Sachs analyst who covers his company and had an $11 price target — just below both the Wall Street estimate and where shares were trading at the time.

After a few questions came from other analysts, Goncalves turned his attention back to Korn and also towards short sellers. Here's a transcript of the call via Bloomberg (emphasis ours):

When asked by Bloomberg's Joe Deaux about why he had taken aim at Korn, Goncalves didn't hold back. "The Goldman Sachs commodities desk has been wrong about iron ore prices, years in a row," he said, adding that he wanted to debate the desk in person at Goldman Sachs' annual conference this year.

It's not the first time Goncalves has had a contentious moment with an analyst on an earnings call. In October 2014, he refused to answer

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