Perhaps so. But I think that Eli and Alan (if I may be so bold as to be on first name basis) go back a long way. If $65 is the number (at an outlandish PE but nevermind), and if he owns a few million shares (I don't know what his ownership is), then he gets a fair bit of change--probably much of it in SEG stock, which admittedly is currently rather depressed, but nevermind again. That can be remedied by next spring/summer/fall without much problem. He can't sell his stock now or anytime soon without wrecking the market, but SEG is far more liquid, and has good prospects in its own right, without SNDK.
But Alan would have to be pretty sure that Intel wouldn't wreck havoc with flash memory, and that SNDK would be a big winner to do it, but he is definitely a risk taker, and while drives will be a good business over the next few years at least, it has a definite ceiling on its growth--Seagate has already diversified in software, and has hinted that they will make a large acquisition sometime in the next year (they hinted at this last spring--they said, if I recall correctly, that they "wouldn't rule it out").
However, this is all far flung speculation.
Sam |
