Dear Richard (and others);
Meeting this morning went well, all propositions passed, and we thank you for the support.
I have no idea why the stock price is behaving the way it is. We continue to execute on our plan. We have taken good companies on, and have taken them away from our competitors who were trying hard to get them.
In answer to some queries here and on Yahoo!, our acquisitions are, almost always, EBITDA positive. We have stopped saying that in our press releases for a number of reasons: (i) the competition isn't entitled to know so much about them, (ii) EBITDA doesn't seem to be the base of anyone's measure of us (didn't seem to matter a bit when we went EBITDA positive), and (iii) even if a particular acquisition were to be EBITDA negative, we would have a plan to turn that positive quickly, anyway.
As for integrating a number of new companies, please remember that we only choose top companies to acquire, who are successful in their markets. Their management know how to run a company, and we tend to keep them and their employees. So, while integration is hard work, it is done by dedicated people on both sides, in a win/win situation.
Our main efforts are focussed on four fronts: (i) acquiring good companies in the important IP markets in the world, (ii) acquiring the network (fiber and equipment) to connect existing and new customers, (iii) building new data centers on our network to host the web and other needs of our customers, and (iv) improving our service offerings for our customers. As far as we can tell, we're doing it as well or better than others.
Again, thanks for your interest and support.
Regards,
David Kunkel |
