Techie, at the Annual Meeting Jim Steenbergen commented that the company ideally wouldn't want to do a secondary until after ramp-up and a backlog of orders existed...and his timeframe, as someone mentioned, was for the second half of 1997 or early 1998. The yearly rough-estimated figures cited by JS for the upcoming NEC deal called for some 20K-to-50K modems in 1997 (delivery beginning after mid-year) in an overall context of "200,000 lines" (or 400,000 modems) over 4 years (even though NEC's Hong Kong contract calls for completion earlier than 4 years, I believe). NEC had not yet placed the order at the time of the meeting.
Amati hasn't had a press release since 12/9 (the meeting was 12/20), and this seems a particularly long interval of "no news." At the meeting, again if I recall correctly, JS commented some announcements could be expected in early January.
If the IPO Financial info is accurate, and JS said a secondary would likely only happen in the context of a "backlog of orders," then perhaps we're being clued that an announcement is soon forthcoming regarding NEC placing its Hong Kong VDSL order with AMTX. Perhaps the secondary and NEC order announcement will be simultaneous? Or perhaps merely the NEC order announcement is imminent, and the secondary is quietly being prepared for a time later this year, when additional NEC orders create the ideally-desired "backlog of orders." (JS expects increased analyst coverage of AMTX with the secondary offering.)
Just Speculating,
eric
(...and maybe the initial NEC order will be larger than stated at the Annual meeting and the secondary will be accelerated for capital needs. Better to deny the secondary until news and details of the NEC order placement is out.) |
