Alan;
Refering to your takover questions and John G's reesponse:
First, Let me say that I simply replied to Ian's list of "possibilities" of what was up with the huge volume, so I'm not saying it's likely, just a very remote possibility. That said, I'd like to first note that the thought of takeover may not just be "what tools I need to add to my offering". Let's look at some things other than that first, since John mostly addressed the tool issue. I think Mattson may be a threat to AMAT in 2 other ways. Pricing - look at the Samsung sale, they were undercut by a huge margin (from list on the Producer) by a 300MM tool vs AMAT's 200mm tool. At least 4 of those 300mm Aspen III CVD's are in production now, right as we go into 300MM coming into play. Second, Mattson just proposed to dramatically cut the cost of a Fab to (see notes on the annual meeting) which could reduce overall equipment sales to AMAT. So I propose 2 other issues rather that just tools, pricing and volume effects. These are real business potential issues to AMAT and NVLS, much bigger potentially than competing with some loss of market share to MTSN in CVD or RTP.
Okay, back to tools. Based on the recent, and maybe a little high estimate, of $1B in total strip and clean sales in 2002, I think AMAT could get 50% of this if they took over MTSN now (look at what they did with CMP). That's $500M is sales they do have on the table now. With AMAT's p/s ratio of say 4, that would add $2B to their market cap in 2002. I'd say a $400M takeover could be justified by strip and clean alone. Secondly, I think the Aspen III CVD is in much better shape than folks realize. Huge improvement over the past tool, 7 units in production (soon), virtually everyone looking at one for their pilot lines (except, maybe INTC).
Oh well, sorry for the long post. Whoever is buying they have to file a 13G soon, won't they :')
Best Regards,
John Stewart |
