Report from Emerald Research Conf by DraganF
Emerald y2k index fund picking up TPRO.
The following is a short overview of my impressions at the Emerald Conference in Pittsburgh today:
The good news is that I got there just in time for lunch..lol...(I had other commitments this morning) and, by serendipity, ended up sitting at the same table with Emerald's Joseph Besecker, President and Founder, Kenneth Mertz, VP & Chief Investment Officer of HomeState Group,their mutual funds division, Joseph Garner, Director of Research, and other Emerald analysts. I ended up spending a some time talking with Cassandra Toroian, a research analyst whose specialty is financial services companies, specifically regional banks. FWIW, she mentioned that it is very likely Mellon Bank will be taken over by another, however, she didn't know the time frame or who it might be at this time. She also told me I really ought to look into First Colonial Group (FTCG). I told her I would and that I will pass this information on to you all.
The bad news is that I missed MCRE's presentation, which I really wanted to attend. Unfortunately, they presented this morning at 9:30...sorry Angie.
For those of you who don't know, Emerald Research is an equity investment research firm that specializes in researching and analyzing small-to mid-sized Pennsylvania-based, publicly-traded companies. Also they currently offer two mututal funds, The HomeState Pennsylvania Growth Fund and HomeState Select Opportunities Funds. Sometime this fall they will offer a new Y2K fund. Also they are opening up an office in San Diego.
The companies that participated at this Forum:
Piercing Pagoda, MetaCreations Corp., Iomega Corp., Crown American Realty Trust, Sovereign Bancorp, JLG Industries, Vishay Intertechnology, BT finanacial Corp., Mastech Corp., Topro, Inc., Zitel Corp, Safeguard Scientifics, GenRad, Motive Power, Owosso Corp., Integrated Systesm Consulting Group, Tollgrade Communications, Ansoft Corp., 11-V1 Incorporated, Calgon Carbon Corp., Herley Industries, C-COR Electronics, Carpenter Technology Corp., TB Woods.
The Presentations I attended:
Vishay Intertechnology, BT Financial Corp, Mastech Corp. & Topro, Inc.
Of those that I attended the two companies that impressed me the most are Mastech (MAST) and Topro (TPRO):
Topro: John Jenkins, the President and CEO gave a professional and thorough presentation. Most of what he had to say was a repeat of what he said in the conference call after earnings yesterday. If you're interested you can get most of that information on SI or the Fools Message board. He did reiterate several times that they are the only public company addressing the y2K compliance problems in process control and factory floor automations system with a proprietary package of product and services. Although he did say that Rayethon is just beginning to work on factory floor Y2K compliance on a "custom project basis". In addition to their Fluor Daniels alliance which is now finalized and which puts them in the international arena, Jenkins mentioned that they are in "engagements" with a South American Oil Refinery in Venezuela. He mentioned the name, but I didn't write it down. They are increasing their engineering staff by 50% They are also currently involved in "engagements" with fourteen Fortune 500 companies. He mentioned it will cost some millions of dollars (depending on their size and needs) to obtain Y2K factory floor compliance. In this context he mentioned Boeing. There were about 70-80 people at this presentation. Jenkin's presentation reinforced what I already knew. Topro/Tava seems to have everything in place and are ready to take off. Jenkins said they get 3/4 calls a day from companies inquiring about their y2k services. Emerald's mututal fund division, HomeState Group, will be offering soon a y2K fund and I think Tpro will be one of the companies in this fund. |
