Jurgis Bekepuris
"BTW, Dell cannot cover their put obligations by issuing shares...
Then the following quote from their 10K is misleading, especially the part I highlighted with bold:
"...The Company has utilized equity instrument contracts to facilitate its repurchase of common stock, but has not entered into any new contracts subsequent to October of 2000. At February 1, 2002, the Company held equity options that allow for the purchase of 25 million shares of common stock at an average price of $58 per share. At February 1, 2002, the Company also had outstanding put obligations covering 51 million shares with an average exercise price of $45 per share for a total of $2.3 billion (compared to a total of $5.4 billion at February 2, 2001). The equity instruments are exercisable only at the date of expiration and expire at various dates through the first quarter of fiscal 2004. However, these instruments contain termination triggers that allow the holder to force settlement beginning at an $8 share price. The outstanding put obligations at February 1, 2002 permitted net share settlement at the Company’s option and, therefore, did not result in a liability on the accompanying Consolidated Statement of Financial Position included in “Item 8 — Financial Statements and Supplementary Data.” The Company’s practice has been to physically settle in-the-money put contracts as they mature by repurchasing the shares subject to the contracts and plans to continue to utilize this settlement option."
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"Dell's problems with puts are somewhat unrelated to the their option story."
I agree in part. The part that is similar is the style of understating of the obligation as evidenced by the quote from above "...did not result in a liability on the accompanying Consolidated Statement of Financial Position...".
Timba |
