Some thoughts............
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JJC Abandons His Qwest
By James J. Cramer
6/23/99 12:41 PM ET
I just threw in the towel on Qwest (QWST:Nasdaq). Enough is enough. Can't take it any more. I have been riding this one high since Jim Seymour first turned me on to it, one of a half dozen huge winners that Seymour has pointed me toward in his must-read column. At his prompting, I caught more than a double and I am thrilled with Seymour.
However, I am not thrilled with Qwest. First of all, I am a trader. Therefore I am never stupid enough to bid against myself, as Qwest did. I come up with a price I am willing to pay and I then don't say, "Hey, let me up my bid" after I have said that's all I want to pay.
Second, I think this move, as well as the earlier bids, shows tremendous contempt for the shareholders. Maybe the Qwest management club thinks this is a private company with some bozo tagalongs like me that they can shaft all they want. Fine. But I am voting with my feet. Let someone else play the role of the bozo tagalong.
Finally -- and this is the main reason why I am throwing in the towel -- U S West (USW:NYSE) shouldn't even be the darn object of a takeover bid. It just ain't worth it. Global Crossing (GBLX:Nasdaq) shouldn't have made the starting bid in the first place, and Qwest certainly shouldn't have gotten involved after. I thought these companies were smarter than this.
Oh, sure, U S West has some DSL lines, blah, blah, blah. But give me a break. U S West is such a crummy company. I don't want to own it. I want to beat it. I was hoping Qwest would let Global blow itself up by doing this merger. Now Global is getting Qwest to commit financial suicide with its topper bid.
Maybe if the target were Bell Atlantic (BEL:NYSE), with its huge mass, we could have something worth hocking a company to the gills for. That would be a transforming merger worth betting the company on. But not U S West, a second-rate Baby Bell from day one. Jeeeshhh!
If I were Global, I would walk away from this fiasco so fast Jack Grubman's head would spin.
Both bids are lunacy, something dreamed up in order to generate huge fees and pump up already outsized egos. I don't know which bid is more valuable, but I am quite sure that Qwest gets the nod for the more stupid of the two.
What a shame.
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Seems like the time to start buying or adding to existing positions.
Cheers,
D
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