ANOTHER APPEARANCE OF AMPEX IN BLOOMBERG MAGAZINE
On page 24, Marc Robbins, in his regular column, has this to say,
"Second, since you want the people in charge to be focused on building shareholder wealth, make sure they are shareholders themselves. I don't want the guys running the businesses I invest in luxuriating...I want to see them unfit, anemic, and single-mindedly striving to become unfathomably rich. If they're successful, I get what I want. What's the right measure of this sort of myopia? Insider stock ownership. 20% or more seems about right to me. Insiders who own positions of that size must have the kind of commitment that, in time, will pay the kind of return I desire.
Iomega is a good example. In 95 we were tipped off that big things were happening there by the insider purchases, especially those of the new head honcho. Yeah, the story sounded good, the new products were interesting, and we liked the new team. But NOTHING SHOWED US MORE RAW CONVICTION THAN THE PRESIDENT'S BELLYING UP TO THE BAR WITH A MARKET ORDER FOR THE STOCK. (We've had the same warm, cozy feeling about Ampex, which I wrote about in the March/April issue, since it's chairman bought nearly 500K of its shares in November)."
There we go again, Ampex and Iomega in the same paragraph. Well, the price is low, nobody big seems to care, but sunny days will come again, and a stock price in double digits approaching triple ones. Call me maniacally bullish, Ampex crazed, whatever, but this stock should see triple digits by 2000 I believe. |
