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INVESTKentucky presents information about equity conference to Louisville Venture Club

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (May 6, 2009) - Several groups involved in capital-raising and strategic planning introduced themselves to a Venture Club of Louisville audience today in a program designed to enhance awareness of the many funding and investor outreach opportunities in Kentucky.

 Making presentations about their organizations and their missions were Forge Louisville, a networking group for early stage entrepreneurs; the Venture Club, which acts as a marketplace for entrepreneurs and investors; Enterprise Corp., which helps develop the region's fast-growth companies; the Association for Corporate Growth, a networkign group for more established companies; and INVESTKentucky, an equity forum allowing Kentucky publicly traded companies to reach fund managers, securities analysts and other professional investors.

Terry McWilliams, chairman of INVESTKentucky, talked about how  the Louisville equity conference was formed and its role in helping the state's public companies reach the investment community.  His prepared remarks follow:

"INVESTKentucky basically is a natural outgrowth from my background is a financial communicator and investor relations practitioner. I have worked in investor relations since 1989, when I joined the South's fourth-largest PR firm, Wenz-Neely, to head its financial/investor relations practice. I have worked with a wide variety of companies, including Dollar General, Ashland Coal, Kimball International and Genlyte Group, among others.

"As an investor relations professional, one of the key thrusts is to find and target likely investors. Another is communication - making sure the investing public receives consistent news about the good, the bad, and everything in between. The goal is to make sure that the company is fairly valued in the market -  not grossly undervalued or overvalued.

"That leads me to how INVESTKentucky was formed. A few years ago, I attended the National Investor Relations Institute's conference and heard the president of the Raleigh chapter talk about an equity event they staged.  Instead of having companies going to New York or Boston or Chicago, why not turn the tables?  Why not have Wall Street come to Main Street?  The idea was intreguing.

 "The chapter president said the event was successful. It was held in a hotel in February. The state treasurer was the keynote speaker, and a handful of public companies made presentations.

"I kept thinking, 'We have Churchill Downs and Spring racing.  We could make this a real event!"

"So I took the concept back to Louisville. I asked area CFOs and IR folks to lunch for their opinion. Would Louisville support a conference like this?  Would you participate?  The answers were all positive. And INVESTKentucky was born in that restaurant.

"The mission for INVESTKentucky is this - to showcase the public companies of Kentucky by providing a convenient presentation forum to reach a qualified, invitation-only audience of fund managers, analysts and other investment professionals. 

"The public companies involved in INVESTKentucky primarily are comprised of three types. First are those companies that attract the most investor attention - companies such as Yum! Brands, Humana, Brown Forman and Papa John's.  For future conferences we would like to host leading companies such as Ashland, Kindred, Pharmerica, Tempur Pedic, and Lexmark.

 "The second group are up-and-coming companies such as Almost Family, Inc., which is participating in the 2009 event, and before its sale to Philips, Louisville-based Genlyte Group. And then we get to the smaller capitalization companies that most benefit from INVESTKentucky. This year Fast Track companies Delta Natural Gas Company and Citizens First Corporation are participating in one-on-one meetings at the conference.

 "This is a multiple-industry, multi-capitalization event that works on many levels.  Analysts and fund managers interested in food service companies can see a good industry representation by attending presentations from Yum Brands, Papa Johns and Texas Roadhouse, as they did in 2007. This year they can hear presentations from a large array of Kentucky's public banks.

"INVESTKentucky provides investors the chance to get face to face with presenting CEOs and CFOs. That's important. Rivel Research, in its 2007 survey of the buyside, found that: ·-�œquality of management-�� was an important factor in making an investment decision, and 42 percent said they required a one-on-one meeting before they would invest anything. The survey also found that 83 percent felt management credibility was the most important factor in making an investment decision and 77 percent said management-�™s ability to communicate an effective business strategy was very important.

 "That makes face-to-face venues like INVESTKentucky even more important opportunities to enhancing credibility and convincing investors of the worth of buying into the company..

"This June 4 conference is the third such Kentucky equity conference, and it serves as the  model for INVEST conferences in other states. Last September's INVESTIndiana was the  first non-sporting event in Lucas Oil Stadium, and this year,  planning is also underway for the first INVESTOhio in Columbus.  Conferences are being considered for Tennessee and in other states where it makes sense.  

"We plan to keep doing these conferences in various states on a regular basis, providing companies the forum for telling their equity story and providing equity analysts and portfolio managers the opportunity to see a wide array of public companies in their own state."

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