Primerica is heading off an assault from The Bear Cave, a weblog with 62,000 subscribers that covers issues at publicly traded firms.
Edwin Dorsey, the weblog’s editor, steered in an article posted Thursday that the Duluth, Georgia-based life insurer makes use of high-pressure gross sales techniques and questionable gross sales accounting figures.
Primerica put out a press release describing Dorsey as a “blogger who printed a deceptive opinion about Primerica with the intend to drive down its inventory value.”
“Their assertions and conclusions about Primerica are false,” Primerica mentioned. “They don’t precisely painting what Primerica’s licensed gross sales power does on daily basis to help middle-income households.”
What it means: Bloggers, short-sellers and activist shareholders appear to be focusing extra on life and annuity issuers today.
That might enhance the insurers’ executives’ stage of stress however finally enhance buyers’ curiosity within the inventory.
The weblog article: Dorsey, who graduated from Stanford in 2020, mentioned he primarily based his article on supplies corresponding to a recorded Zoom presentation from a nationwide gross sales director, a textual content message and agent shows that emphasize the significance of recruiting different brokers.
Primerica’s shares have been promoting for greater than $213 every earlier than the article got here out, then fell greater than 10%, to lower than $190, earlier than bouncing again to greater than $214 per share on the shut of buying and selling Friday.