Public company management teams consistently meet with sell-side analysts (that is the analyst's job in this case) and with mutual fund managers. When he said

Public company management teams consistently meet with sell-side analysts (that is the analyst's job in this case) and with mutual fund managers. When he said "we just had them in town" he very, very likely meant that management met with him and his other sell-side analysts. That has nothing to do with investment banking relationships or the "Chinese wall". If a sell-side analyst throws a management team under a bus publicly, often times the management team won't visit the analyst. That makes it hard for the analyst to do his or her job since they cannot ask questions about the company. It is a big issue, but not the issue you bring up.