I was reading a one page “Flash” on Home Inns and noticed this in the three pages of disclosures and certifications that followed:

An analyst involved in the preparation of this report has visited certain material operations of the subject company within the past 12 months. The analyst may not have visited all material operations of the subject company. The travel expenses of the analyst in connection with such visits were paid or reimbursed by the subject company.

Now I don’t care who paid for the travel, but I’m extremely interested to know if the analyst actually stayed in a Home Inns hotel while in China. I’d bet a dollar to a dime that the analyst stayed in a five-star hotel while here, and only briefly visited “certain material operations.” (And don’t you just hate such lawyers who write such disclosures? — I’m in a running battle to eliminate every such I see in China — such also badly infects Hong Kong.)