Steven Levy of Lehman Brothers resigns ...
<< where is that $4.00 price per share the stock is supposed to see soon? >>
Dunno, but one of the few analysts that have been bullish on Lucent is retiring or "officially taking some time off" from covering telecoms.
I mentioned him here a few months back:
Message 21308102
>> Prominent Analyst Levy Leaves Lehman
Ed Gubbins
Telephony Online
Aug 17, 2005
On Sept. 2, 2005, Lehman Brothers financial analyst Steven Levy will resign his job covering telecommunications companies after nearly 20 years on Wall Street. In an e-mail distributed this afternoon to clients and other industry associates, Levy announced he was “officially taking some time off.”
“Just as the telecommunications environment has proven itself to be cyclical in nature, my career is now entering a new phase of its own cycle,” Levy wrote. “And even though I have not yet decided what my next career move is going to be, I feel fortunate to have many alternatives to pursue. I am confident, however, that whichever direction my path takes, it will include putting to use the incredible business lessons I have learned since my first job at AT&T in 1980 through my last job with Lehman Brothers.”
Levy was one of the most prominent Wall Street analysts focused on the telecom equipment sector, covering such firms as Lucent Technologies, Nortel Networks, Tellabs and ECI Telecom. Prior to Lehman Brothers, he worked for Solomon Smith Barney and spent six years in AT&T’s “Long Lines” business.
In her book “Optical Illusions: Lucent and the Crash of Telecom,” author Lisa Endlich credited Levy with being one of the keenest analysts covering telecom equipment vendors throughout the bubble and beyond, expressing--earlier than most--a healthy skepticism of Lucent’s business during the telecom bubble and presciently predicting the cultural integration clashes that followed Lucent’s acquisition of Ascend Communications. However, he was not totally immune to the madness of the telecom bubble. In setting a $90 price target for Lucent stock in 1998, he explained, “We have essentially thrown in the towel on any traditional valuation parameters…although we do this reluctantly, given our long history of following technology stocks.”
He also took some ribbing for the occasional colorful use of metaphors in his research notes, as when he wrote of a “spending storm” in telecom in 2001. “Lightning flashes and thunder claps roar, leaving investors shivering as they cling to their dinghies,” he wrote.
In his farewell note today, Levy took a more wistful tone.
“The rise of the Internet and the unleashing of competitive service providers in the second half of the 1990s was breathtaking from an investment perspective and equally so was the unprecedented decline in the telecom market from 2001 through 2003,” Levy wrote today. “Throughout it all, I hope you were able to find some value in my teams' analysis, our financial projections and our productive networking conferences and events.” <<
- Eric - |
