Well, the rumor I heard from an employee of Lucent during Comdex was: They were buying a networker (Cisco,Coms,or ASND)and an announcement would come after the new year?
Jeff,
1. Interesting rumor. Could pan out. Cisco is utterly impossible, unless it's a merger, which would certainly raise anti-competition issues, while COMS is very unlikely, with such a huge market cap even at depressed levels.
2. Wonder why LU would wait till after the new year? They can't do that pooling of interest thing until October, from what I hear.
3. The other interesting thing in all of this is, if we assume that LU did offer ASND $35, and ASND did indeed counter with $40, why wouldn't LU quickly come back with an affirmative? $40 is still very cheap compared to where ASND has been this year. If LU really does want ASND, whats's $5, some $900 million? Hell, they paid about that for Livinston, right?
4. Speaking of Livingston, that acquisition still does not make sense if LU were to swallow ASND. Why burn $800-900 million for something that you do not need?
-John Dodson |
