Hey Steve. I'm long both MASK and PLAB - but my PLAB has a basis of around $4.10 so I'm going to let it ride. :)
This should be a powerhouse combination - our take on the mask segment FWIW - looks like better days ahead:
* ALIGN-RITE INTERNATIONAL (MASK) manufactures photomasks for the semiconductor industry. Photomasks are precision photographic quartz or glass plates containing microscopic images of integrated circuits, and are required for the manufacture of virtually all integrated circuits.
MASK will be acquired by industry-leader Photronics (PLAB), with each share of MASK being exchanged for 0.85 shares of PLAB. We think the market for photomasks, and the outlook for MASK, is very positive as evidenced by comments in an April, 2000 Electronic News article by Jeff Chappell:
"One thing everyone agrees on is that the markets for photomasks and lithography equipment have picked up in the last several months and will continue to grow in the near future. . . . Mask makers and their equipment suppliers are also seeing a rise in the marketplace that has come only in the last few months. But, again, there isn't necessarily a correlation between semiconductor manufacturing, lithography equipment, and photomasks. . . ."
"Typically there is a year between an upswing in the lithography equipment market and a corresponding increase in the photomask market. But the photomask market is also much less volatile than the lithography equipment market, Castellano said [Robert Castellano is President of technology consulting firm Information Network], and it's not characterized by the large peaks and valleys that mark lithography equipment sales. . . . As die shrinks continue to the 0.18- and 0.13-micron level, the number of masks sold will not increase as much as the cost [of the photomasks and these developments] . . . . will in turn require more complex masks, such as phase-shift masks."
"So we'll start seeing a stronger growth in the mask area than we have in the last 10 years, but not these peaks and valleys," Castellano predicted. We would buy MASK at current levels, and the company will benefit from the combined company's leading edge technology and strong market positioning.
Best - Joe at members.aol.com |
