And so it was that yesterday I wandered over to Russell Street to attend the 2011 CBA Shareholders Meeting. It was a pretty civilized affair: Widmer Pitch Black IPA (formerly W'10) and Kona Longboard Lager were on tap, and chilled bottles of Red Hook Pilsner and Copper Hook were available. Shareholders were given a Widmer grocery sack and invited to pick up a nice "dividend" for attending the meeting: six-packs of the three CBA brands. Kurt Widmer ran the meeting with a glass of Pitch Black in hand, and Prosted us with it after the brief formal business portion of the meeting.
There followed a Power Point presentation on the current marketing focus of the company. Widmer, Kona, and Red Hook -- the three brands that remain in CBA after the sale of Goose Island to InBev -- each fulfill a different goal for the company. Kona has great summer seasonal sales as beachgoers try to recapture that island feeling from past Hawaiian vacations (marketing speak: Liquid Aloha). The Widmer brand aims to provide the variety that the modern beer geek demands: this was the point of this year's rebranding, replacing Broken Halo with the Rotator IPA series, the yearly "W" releases with the more flexible Series 924 four-packs, and continuing the occasional Brothers Reserve bombers. Red Hook is the part of the portfolio I feel a little sorry for. This is its 30-year anniversary, and while it was a big fish in a small pond decades ago, the company has all but relegated it to downmarket status. In Marketingese, Red Hook is sold on its "unique big personality": the company describes it as "edgy" and "approachable", not as delicious and high-quality.
In terms of the stock, this has been a good year. The price has nearly tripled in the last twelve months. The sale of CBA's stake in Goose Island brought in a nice cash windfall for the company. And the business page editors at the Oregonian have been roused from their four-year slumber and finally added HOOK to their table of Stocks of Local Interest.
Last June I listed several risks you might consider if you were thinking about buying stock in the CBA (if you are thinking of such an investment, do read that article). I received a first-hand lesson in those risks when I took the plunge. Here's how it happened. Last August, with the share price threatening $5, I decided to take a gamble in an IRA account and buy 100 shares. Because so few shares are traded, and because I placed my order late on a Friday, the brokerage only filled part of my order that day. I was the proud owner of a mere 15 shares, meaning the $9 commission had effectively added 60¢ to the $4.93 share price. Dammit! That's like losing 12% on your investment immediately. The following Monday I was able to get a full 100 shares for $4.95 apiece, though there were some tense moments as I watched the purchase get pieced together in chunks of 4 shares, 6 more, 7 more, wondering if I had just bought another expensive 17 shares, until the final 83 came through. Moral for the small investor: bid at or above the ask price, and buy early in the day.
