I could care less about a few insiders selling stock. What is the problem?
Facts please, not your wild speculations on why people are selling.
The sky is falling, the sky is falling!
Now you did it, I had to go dig up the damn Article :
I let Amati speak for themselves.
From Herb Greenburgs article SF Chronicle, back in June 96.
But if ADSL prevails, Amati CEO Jim Steenbergen is convinced Amati will rule.
"I can tell you we will outperform anything Westell and Paradyne does,'' he says. Motorola is developing chips based on Amati's technology. Prototypes are expected by fall, "then we'll debug them, and build modems sometime by the second quarter of next year,'' said Steenbergen.
Many critics of Amati, however, say its business will quickly become a
commodity that operates on slim margins. The only barrier to entry is having the technology, so some skeptics wonder what will prevent Motorola from selling chips to any and all. They also point out that it's extremely hard to make money by just assembling a circuit board and selling it.
But Steenbergen isn't swayed by competition. "By the time the chip comes out we'll be developing things that are far ahead of what someone else can do who has just received the chip.''
He adds that "the biggest companies in the world are coming in here to
partner with us to make equipment. They say that's where the margins are.''
As for the rapid rise of Amati's stock, which closed yesterday at 19 1/4 -- but got as high as 33 7/8 last month -- Steenbergen says, "I have nothing to do with the price of the stock. Should we be valued at 32 on a fundamental basis? Absolutely not. . . obviously this is a forward price. But this is not a fundamental play, it's bought on future sales.''
He took particular offense at one comment here yesterday that based on the purchase price Texas Pacific Group is paying Lucent for AT&T Paradyne, Amati's stock isn't worth more than 35 cents.
"I've got people offering $100 million to do a private placement in this, and I could do it in a week.''
Why, then, did Icot Corp. pay only $32 million to buy Amati -- patents and all -- less than seven months ago? Steenbergen replies he has nothing to do with what others are willing to pay for the stock in the open market.
And he leaves the impression that the price Texas Pacific is paying for Paradyne -- $175 million, or half Paradyne's sales -- says more about what the market thinks of the technology Westell is using, than what Amati should be worth. Remember, Westell licenses ADSL technology from Paradyne. "They've tried to sell that for a year and they haven't found a taker,'' he says.
Finally, why has Steenbergen and other Amati insiders been filing to sell their stock?
"Wouldn't you file to sell at 32 if you have options at 50 cents?'' he asks.
"I could have sold 20 times what I filed to sell. You sell one or two percent of your stock along the way. Is that terrible?''
That's All Folks
JW@KSC
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