This fund manager likes WCOM:
Excerpt from a June 25 Dow Jones article on regional mutual funds:
Morgan Keegan Southern Capital Fund
Elkan Scheidt, manager of the Morgan Keegan
Southern Capital Fund, has a wider investment target
area than the Growth Fund of Washington. The fund,
which has returned 26% in the past year, must invest at
least 65% of its assets in 15 Southeastern states.
Currently, Scheidt has a full 89% of its assets invested in
the region.
According to Scheidt, the fund is poised to take
advantage of the region's favorable business
environment, which includes benefits like a low cost of
living, fast job growth, a low tax rate and a largely
nonunion labor force.
For the past four years, Scheidt's largest position has
been Jackson, Miss.-based Worldcom (WCOM).
Scheidt, who sees the telecom giant as a 'stealth way to
play the Internet' paid an average $17.53 a share for the
company. He sees the stock, which currently trades at
around 47, reaching 70 to 80 in the next 18 to 20
months.
WCOM/MCI deal also mentioned favourably in a separate Dow Jones article on AT&T:
Several investors compared AT&T's deal with TCI
unfavorably to the pending merger between WorldCom
Inc. (WCOM) and MCI Communications Corp.
(MCIC). That merger, they said, is more financially and
technologically straightforward and less dependent on
combining disparate businesses. |
