excerpted from a 1/1/01 barron's piece....
"Doug Kass, suffered no such inhibitions. Doug runs a hedge fund called Seabreeze Partners and has a spectacular record. Up 70% in 1999, he was up 71% in 2000, and that's after the healthy bite hedge funds take in fees. Both years, he was predominantly short (averaging 80% in '00). And, as a blurb we wrote about him last summer made clear, his prime targets were the techs and the Internets."
snip...
"His preferred sector shorts are the hand-held computer device makers, Palm, Handspring and Research In Motion. As he puts it, the product choice here is growing daily, which is great for the consumer, bad for the producer.
The growing competition, moreover, can only get worse, in Doug's view. And to meet it, the companies must rely on the stock market to fund growth, since they're all cash-flow negative.
He sees a real threat that wireless handsets will muscle in on the business, and, of course, the manufacturers of such products -- Ericcson and Nokia, for example -- are strictly in the heavyweight class. Should this happen and such rivals make an aggressive push into the market, he sees the hand-held computer trio in real trouble.
As it is, he notes, their share prices are unsupported by earnings, and even looking two years out, all three companies are projected to earn less than 30 cents a share. His targets are 20 for Palm (28 and change on Friday); 30 for Handspring (38 and change) and 40 for Research in Motion (80)." |
