Kevin Kelleher
Updated from 2:34 p.m. EST
The morning after investors drove eBay's(EBAY Quote - Cramer on EBAY - Stock Picks) stock down 19% in one of the darkest days in the stock's history, eBay spoke back to investors. Or rather, it spoke back to some of them. At 10 a.m. EST, the online auction pioneer made its CEO Meg Whitman and its CFO Rajiv Dutta available on a one-hour conference call organized by Goldman Sachs and hosted by its e-commerce analyst Anthony Noto. eBay later posted a phone number on its Web site allowing the public to listen to a recording of the call, but outsiders couldn't submit any questions. Goldman clients such as TIAA/CREF, Waddell & Reed and Genesis Capital Management were allowed to address Whitman and Dutta directly. And they had an edge by hearing the responses first: at one point, eBay's stock was trading as high as $88.09 about an hour after the live conference call ended Friday morning, up 6% from the Thursday close of $83.33. eBay ended the day up 3% at 86.05. That the call was restricted to Goldman clients angered other investors. "Maybe you shouldn't allow everyone to ask questions, but the call should have been made immediately available on eBay's Web site," said a fuming hedge fund manager who has held eBay shares in the past and may do so in the future. "I'm a little surprised by all this," says Hani Durzy, a spokesman for eBay. "There wasn't anything said that wasn't already public information in our earnings announcement." Durzy said it made a playback of the call available on its Web site at 11:45 a.m. EST, about 45 minutes after it ended. A transcript of the call will also be available by the end of the day Friday, he said. Investment banks like Goldman routinely allow their clients to have access to corporate executives, whether through conference calls or investment conferences. It's up to the company not to make any disclosures at those meetings that could move the stock. "We organize calls for clients. We don't organize calls for the public," says a Goldman spokesman. "That's common practice on Wall Street."
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