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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gerald Walls who wrote (26815)	7/20/1999 12:59:00 AM
From: taxman	Respond to of 74651

thanks to all who got me straight on tracking stock. regards July 19, 1999 Microsoft: To track, or not to track? Filed at 8:20 p.m. EDT By Ben Heskett, CNET News.com Microsoft executives said the company is "reviewing" splitting off its Internet holdings as a separate tracking stock but today hedged on a timetable for disclosure of such a plan. Executives noted there has recently been widespread "speculation" concerning the creation of a "tracking stock" or "structure," as chief financial officer Greg Maffei characterized it, but they gave no indication of what the company's plans would be for such an offering going forward. Under the rumored proposal, Microsoft would separate its various Internet holdings--such as its Hotmail free email service and Expedia online travel booking site--into a tracking stock to bolster its value and possibly use the stock as currency for acquisitions. "We are reviewing such a structure but have no imminent plans to announce such a structure," Maffei said during the company's announcement of year-end earnings today. In response to a question concerning the tracking stock scenario, Maffei said, "I don't want to be any more specific." In creating such a stock, Microsoft would potentially be able to reap the high value currently associated with Internet-related offerings and could attract an executive to run the series of sites--an elusive search that has turned up no one after eight months. Some reports have pegged announcement of a tracking stock for the company's MSN businesses for Thursday of this week, when the financial analyst community will gather in Seattle to be briefed on the state of the company. Microsoft shed a portion of its Internet sites earlier today, trading the city guide portion of MSN Sidewalk for stock and warrants in Ticketmaster Online-CitySearch. Copyright © 1999 CNET Inc.