TheCorporateCounsel.net

The meme stock saga took another interesting turn last week, when the arbiters of materiality from Reddit charged Wall Street and drove several of their favorites to staggering new heights.   That’s nothing new – it’s been happening all year.  But what’s a bit different this time is the way that one company, AMC, has decided to whole-heartedly embrace its “apes.” This Verge article explains:

AMC announced today that it was creating AMC Investor Connect, “an innovative, proactive communication initiative that will put AMC in direct communication with its extraordinary base of enthusiastic and passionate individual shareholders to keep them up to date about important company information and to provide them with special offers.” This represents “a groundbreaking new approach” to communicating with retail investors, the company says. It’s a shame they didn’t put a bunch of rocket emojis in the announcement — after all, there’s no need to be coy. We all know exactly who AMC is speaking to, and if they sign up today, they’re getting free popcorn.

The AMC Investor Connect website bears virtually no resemblance to a traditional investor relations site, and is tied in with its existing “AMC Stubs” affinity program.  Meanwhile, AMC’s CEO continued the company’s new age investor outreach when he sat down for an hour long YouTube interview on the “Trey’s Trades” channel, in which he made a pitch for support of the company’s proposal to authorize an additional 25 million shares of common stock. Apparently, he wasn’t wearing any pants during the interview, which I guess is a thing arbiters of materiality like meme stock CEOs to do these days.

Meanwhile, the SEC said it was observing the meme stock market for signs of “manipulative trading or other misconduct.” General goofiness, it appears, remains outside of the agency’s jurisdiction.

– John Jenkins