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Technology Stocks : International FiberCom, Inc. (NASDAQ- IFCI) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: FastC6 who wrote (2723)	7/2/1999 7:57:00 PM
From: Chris Helton	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 3541

I now understand the second qtr. Keeley held off orders from Williams and some other CLEC in the SFrancisco area while he was negotiating with ATT. He had to go to the mat with ATT and call their bluff (they bargain very hard). He walked away from them (and their terms) and then they came back to him with the contract Keeley wanted, signed. Riley's men were basically standing on their shovels for the last month of the qtr as Keely and ATT dickered. Now IFCI/ATT moves forward full bore and the third qtr is likely to be big. This was a very important win for IFCI and it took a poker player to win the contract on the terms that were favorable to IFCI. You may be right that the qtr is light, but when we see the orders, for the second half, they will dwarf the first half. IFCI has the manpower to handle the surge. RE your comment about IFCI management, I think Keely talks with too many superlatives. It's always "the best of all possible worlds". He should learn to temper his enthusiasm. But as I mentioned before, Kimball is running the company and he is a straight shooter and he can deal with the backhoe operator, the small time cable operator, and the ATT executive. Kimball is the one guiding the Cruttenden analyst downward for the qtr based on Riley getting hung out to dry for a month while Joe negotiated. It was a calculated gamble and it worked. He could have gone forward with other contracts and then he would have committed Riley people to lesser projects for the next three to four months. The OppCo rec is coming out next week I hear and they are fully aware of the shortfall and its dynamics. I think a focus on just the current qtr does miss the boat and the stock is likely to focus on the long term fact that ATT is in a hurry and has a lot of building to do. Stocks like this focus much more on backlog and orders than the current EPS. Dycom is a good example as it was climbing from $13/sh to $49/sh over a one year period. Shorting this stock at this time of its life cycle is risky. You could be right for a day or two and then the accumulation of the institutions blows away the short position. Jack be nimble, Jack be quick. Jack might get burned, jumping over this candle-stick. good luck.