WRT the TSC article on debt featuring Ravi:
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Indeed, that TSC article has ulterior motives, IMO.
This Ravi character first went to all the big houses to spread Fear and help collapse the prices of telcos, fine. Now, he is taking the message to retails so companies such as WCOM or T can try to stem their flow of blood by cheap acquisition of LVLT or TSIX or FLTH or any of the other fibre nets which can do what WCOM and T cannot do: supply competitive Long Distance connects for their customers.
Remember to examine the fact he just finished with Drunken Miller, and that complex involvement with the George Sorry Ass debacle (who could not continue profiteering in a market no longer stupid to his currency-exploiting strategies, he certainly cannot pick good tech stocks).
Whenever I read anything on TSC or Real Money, I always come away with information not printed: i.e. What The Reuters Group would *Wish* for me to believe. Not that it is to be ignored, because the Lemmings will respond accordingly. But beware of buying into the *apparent* argument on this, or any, TSC stuff. They still propound T, NOK as top investments. WCOM and Q(west) have always been their darlings, certainly not THE Q*.
I follow fibre nets (subsea exclusively, the others just to see how the mix is progressing WRT subsea). Debt is important, but business model progress differentiates the healthy from the laggards (because they ALL have tremendous debt, except TCM which has no system yet, to speak of); FWIW only LVLT and GX have optimized for VoIP and *wireless* data transmission (according to their PR spin), but GX is executing and LVLT is not. Aside: I left GSTRF back at ~32 due to FAILURE TO EXECUTE. As I watched all the folks complain about Globalstar to management at the QCOM shareholder's meeting I kept shaking my head. HOW could all these folks not SEE that GSTRF was failing to execute, miserably? Gateways not appearing on time, screwy deals with service providers for G* implementation, no agreements amongst SPs for rates, roaming, handoffs, blablabla. There were handsets available, but the SPs could not agree on what to charge for them, who would get them, blablabla. So, do not read Ravi without examining *execution* of these plays he discusses (He NEVER mentions GX, which is executing flawlessly, thus far--yet has a Mountain of Debt similar to LVLT !!)). LVLT is in deep doodoo (TSIX even deeper, much deeper, but not nearly as diverse nor mature of a system as LVLT), FWIW, and I believe this to be the target (of either T or WCOM or SBC or Q(west)). SBC and Q(west) scratch each other's backs...and Ravi says Nothing at all about the decay in revenues due to LD price erosion, just DEBT. Of itself, this is an intentional deception which is not true. That article is full of propaganda. Ravi ignores the fact that EXDS just completed (Jan '01?) a secondary to get fully funded to profitability, so why is EXDS on his short list? Because it is an excellent property for one of the above players, natch. I will stop here. This may be off topic, but it is germane to understanding the Expansion and Evolution of FUDD which we are about to engage throughout this sector. Execution is key, not debt, unless it overwhelms the business model. My two cents.
Martin Thomas |
