another one from The street.com
Oakes ends a six-year run as a securities analyst, first with J.P. Morgan Securities and then with Lehman, covering the media business. He went out on a
limb in 1994 by straying from newspaper companies to cover one new-media company in the little known Internet sector, America Online (NYSE:AOL -
news) . He has recommended that his clients own AOL pretty much ever since.
Oakes has become chief investment officer for the recently formed Internet investment group of Cendant (NYSE:CD - news) , the franchiser of well-known
brands including Century 21 real estate brokerages, Avis rental cars and Days Inn hotels. Cendant perhaps is better known for the spate of shareholder suits
against it alleging accounting fraud than it is for its nearly nonexistent Internet strategy. Oakes aims to change that.
"Over the last two-and-a-half years, when the company should have been developing an Internet strategy, it was busy fighting lawsuits," says Oakes, 37, an
electrical engineer by training who once ran technology operations for J.P. Morgan's asset-management unit.
Cendant isn't totally absent from the Internet game. Its San Francisco-based Move.com relocation business launched its service Jan. 27, and Cendant plans to
issue a tracking stock to mirror Move.com's performance. And its Wizcom reservations system seems like a perfect enterprise to convert into a hot Web
business.
Oakes isn't the only person looking at Cendant. Media mogul John Malone personally has invested, as has the AT&T (NYSE:T - news) unit he heads,
Liberty Media, which recently bought 18 million shares and warrants on 29 million more (at 23) for a total of $400 million. With Cendant's shares languishing
at 18 11/16, roughly between its 52-week high and low, Oakes' bet clearly is that there are undervalued assets within Cendant, an assumption with which
Malone seems to agree. |
