Lucent buying Bay rumour discussed by Mark Haines of CNBC with CEO of Lucent this a.m. Haines said he had never seen so many rumours "on SI" and elswhere about any one company and its potential take-over targets. He listed BAY among others. Faber chipped in to ask if it was Lucent's October '88 pooling of interest deadline that was holding them up.
The CEO was candid while observing the usual diplomacy. He is looking for acquisitions, including major acquisitions, which will be judged on their merits irrespective of the October date, but that pooling of interest issue is also a major consideration. The message was that as soon as midnight on October 18th or whatever the date is there will be a major acquisition.
He was very relaxed and impressive and, I have to say, better than Dr. House who had just preceeded him. But he does have a better story just now.
Mark Haines said he had listened to the BAY conference call. He was generally positive in his questioning and his final remarks about House turning BAY around. However, when he asked House about the next two or three quarters, with reference to Asia, House did seem to hesitate before saying that while everyone is concerend about Asia, he expects sequential growth based on "big wins" in China and Malyasia.
Would someone like to solve the puzzle raised several times today by other posters. If Bay said in the conference call that it expects sequential growth in the next two quarters similar to the 7% and 11% growth in the first two quarters, how come analysts are concerned that 3rd quarter growth may be negative, flat or low? I realise that BAY said they would "try" to break the seasonal pattern, but did this phraseology imply that they were contradicting the first statement? Did the first statement about growth simply mean the second half of the year, taken as a whole, or did it refer to each of the 3rd and 4th quarters?
Most of those who reported on the conference call on this thread said it was the former and not the latter.
Vepoc |
