victor,
Depends on what you mean by expensive.
Compaq Purchase of Shopping.com Was
'Expensive,' WSJ Reports
Bloomberg News
March 29, 1999, 3:44 a.m. PT
Houston, March 29 (Bloomberg) -- The purchase of Shopping.com
by Compaq Computer Corp., the world's largest personal computer-
maker, may have been too ''expensive,'' as Shopping.com has a
troubled history and needs to boost revenue, BancBoston Robertson
Stephens analyst Daniel T. Niles told the Wall Street Journal's
''Heard on the Street.'' The U.S. Securities and Exchange
Commission temporarily suspended trading in the online merchant
last March because of evidence of manipulative activity, and
company founder Robert McNulty was sued by the SEC in 1994. Even
if Shopping.com isn't profitable, it's unlikely to hurt Compaq as
Shopping.com is a much smaller company, said Piper Jaffray Inc.
analyst Ashok Kumar, and Compaq's Alta Vista Vice President Mike
Rubin told the Journal that Shopping.com could be ''big, big,
big.''
Compaq said earlier this month that it completed its $220
million acquisition of Corona del Mar, California-based
Shopping.com, for which Compaq paid $18.25 a share for all the
outstanding shares.
But from the article you posted:
Even if it is a bust, however, it won't hurt Compaq much: With Compaq's
financial resources and more than $50 billion market capitalization, the
money spent on Shopping.com could be considered a "rounding error,"
says Ashok Kumar, an analyst at Piper Jaffray Inc.
hio |
