< I'think' the CSCC buy was a
reaction to the buy of USRX by COMS, and it wasn't well planned>
The purchase of CSCC was one of the best things ASND has done this year. Until the merger ASND had limited presence with the RBOCs, an important postiion to be in as the local loop becomes increasingly competative. In addition, CSCC was developing a remote access solution(the AX product) that was targeting ASND and the TNT. With CSCC's positioning with the carriers and known quality engineering you can bet their remote access product would have been serious competition for ASND.
I orignally bought CSCC stock based on the fact that with Telecom Deregulation coming to the local loop, they were, without question, the undisputed leader and extremely well positioned to take advantage of that space, and the competative forces about to be released there. Unfortunatley, the deregulation in the local loop has been slowed by politics and lawyers. As a result, CSCC had two bad quarters this year, and had ASND not taken them over, their stock would have most likely dipped into the high teens(in which some other company may have taken them over).
This being said, all the analyst reports these days have stated that it looks like the former CSCC product line is "back on track"(without the AX product mind you). I would assume that without the CSCC merger, ASND stock would now be in the 20's.
The merger of these two companies has nothing to do with the poor performance of the stock. The poor performance of the stock is based on a few things, depending on what you want to believe. Here is my list:
- MM Manipulation (if you think the company is doing fine and is just being beaten down)
- the 56 K problem (if you think that this problem will cost the company a boat load of money)
- TNT unstability and lack of customer acceptance(if you believe the recent analyst comments and disregard the UUNet deal)
- poor July results (I dont care what you want to believe, this is the only real information that we currently have to justify the stock's decline - this may be the one item that can be tied to poor merger execution)
- Perception of ASND management not being upfront with investors(there has been no warnings announcement because of the thinking that the numbers can still be met due to the back end loading of the quarter - does this require a warnings announcement?)
(Please feel free to add more)
The one thing we all know is that all of the speculation, etc will be clear on Oct 9th.
Good Luck |
