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Technology Stocks : C-Cube -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Rieman who wrote (43383)	7/28/1999 12:44:00 AM
From: Black-Scholes	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 50808

John, CUBE's earnings estimates have to be raised for Q3 and Q4 by the mere fact that there is NO WAY analysts anticipated this hyper-growth from DVD and certainly did not anticipate CUBE have a 30% market share in DVD players. Earnings estimates for CUBE must be raised.

To: John Rieman who wrote (43383)	7/28/1999 1:56:00 PM
From: DiViT	Respond to of 50808

U.S. partner seen for Canal Plus-analysts By Nathalie Meistermann biz.yahoo.com PARIS, July 28 (Reuters) - French pay television company Canal Plus is likely to look to a big U.S. film studio or a cutting-edge technology firm to take up a nine percent stake in its capital that is coming up for sale, analysts say. The opportunity arises as the result of a deal between Canal Plus's parent company, Vivendi , and Swiss-based Richemont , which is swapping its 15 percent Canal Plus stake for a 2.9 percent holding in Vivendi. The exchange will boost Vivendi's interest in Canal Plus to 49 percent. But the group, whose main activities are utilities and communications, said last Thursday that it wanted to bring that holding back to 40 percent in the coming months and sell nine percent to ''a strategic international partner.'' Analysts say the exit of Richemont was positive for Canal Plus, as the tobacco and luxury goods was a passive investor which did not add value through its presence in the French firm's capital. They said Vivendi's decision to reinforce its holding and support Canal Plus was also a favourable sign. Canal Plus Chairman Pierre Lescure said last week that he wanted an investor which did not have a big presence in Europe and sought to develop new communications activities there. His remarks appear to rule out Rupert Murdoch's News Corp . Edouard Tetreau, media analyst at Credit Lyonnais Securities Europe, said Lescure's description appeared to designate a leader in the technology sector that could bring its expertise to the communications industry -- like Microsoft (Nasdaq:MSFT - news). ''Microsoft has a strategy of taking minority stakes in peripheral areas which it doesn't master. Canal Plus could help it position itself in some of these new areas,'' he said. ''It could just as well be a group like AT&T (NYSE:T - news), Oracle (Nasdaq:ORCL - news) or AOL (NYSE:AOL - news), which is already partners with Canal Plus in a joint venture with (telecoms operator) Cegetel,'' he said. A firm with technological strengths would correspond to Vivendi's aim to grow in multimedia, a strategy seen in a recent accord with Japan's Softbank to provide a platform for U.S.-based Internet companies seeking to expand in Europe. Canal Plus is probably looking towards the United States, some experts say. ''It's wide open, but one might imagine that this partner will probably be American, most likely a content provider, and the first name that comes to mind is Time Warner (NYSE:TWX - news), already tied to the French company through its 10 percent stake in CanalSatellite,'' said an analyst at a U.S. investment bank. Such a partnership might help Canal Plus secure distribution rights for big U.S. films at a lower cost -- a key issue in the pay-TV industry. Walt Disney (NYSE:DIS - news), Viacom's (Montreal:VIA.M - news) Paramount, and Columbia, a subsidiary of Sony (NYSE:SNE - news) , are also mentioned as possibilities. Analysts say acquisition-hungry U.S. cable operators might also be interested in Canal Plus, although such a deal would offer less to Canal Plus which has plenty of diffusion channels and needs content rather than greater means of distribution. Analysts also say Vivendi -- which will choose the partner along with Canal Plus -- may be looking for a financially powerful investor with a view to a possible bid someday for British pay-TV firm BSkyB (quote from Yahoo! UK & Ireland: BSY.L). Vivendi Chairman Jean-Marie Messier has said he has no such intentions for the moment, but analysts expect he will eventually go after BSkyB, in which Murdoch holds 40 percent but is barred from raising that stake because of his big British press holdings.