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Technology Stocks : Gilat satellite networks (GILTF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimeToMakeTheInvs who wrote (241)	8/19/1999 6:03:00 PM
From: jay silberman	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 350

TTMITI, Yes, I had read a similar analysis elsewhere (SSB, and/or ML). Both cited their recent oil company contract losses as the reason for weakness; thus, the proverbial 'buying opp'. jay

To: TimeToMakeTheInvs who wrote (241)	8/25/1999 9:10:00 PM
From: HGIII	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 350

imho, the only place this stock is heading is a continued spiral downward. why do i believe this? a) the "new" accounts they reported on for 2nd qtr ending were pathetic. let's look at the domestic side of the business, which i happen to be intimately familiar with. they listed conocco pipeline, wafefern and american farm bureau. these were existing customers who were using the at&t tridom clearlink vsat products, which they converted to gilat's skystar advantage product. the total was less than 1000 sites, which, at a very generous $4000/site, represents $4M in "new" hardware business. more telling, having to announce those was a sign of desperation for something to announce, particularly given the size of the accounts. next, the other real new account, netpulse. whoopee!!! a total of 500 total sites committed to. my suspicion is they got to the end of the quarter, realized they didn't have any real new customers to announce, so went out and bought themselves a new customer, ergo the $5M equity investment. (i further suspect that the $5M was used by netpulse to enable them to buy gilat's vsats. if not, they not only spent $5M as an equity investment, but also likely risked the value of 500 VSATs <$2M @ $4000/ea.> since the only way gilat gets paid for those 500 vsats is if netpulse remains a viable, ongoing concern.) they did the same thing last quarter with accent health. that's a lot of money at risk in both cases: equity investments in startups; deployment of vsats startup companies and the risk associated with their long term viability, which is critical since vsat deals are written and done based on a 5 year term. b) based on above, i just don't see there being enough new business to validate ongoing financials. c) my gut feel tells me there may be more hype and smoke to the purported microsoft rumor than substance. it's interesting that this was first reported (leaked?) out of israel. i wonder by whom? if i'm not mistaken, the principles of gilat are ex-israeli military intelligence, who are renowned masters at disinformation, information manipulation and so forth. d) the weak attempt at their discounting the importance of the loss of their largest u.s. customer (shell) and the loss of the bp amoco deal. why weak? let me get this right. before these deals were announced, gilat apparantly let it be known to the investment community that they expected to win them, and that this was good, and would have positive impact to their market share, financials etc. when the deals went to hughes instead, all of a sudden they become immaterial, or insignificant. sounds like double talk and double standard to me. you can't loose out on 20,000+ vsat deals and it not be significant. (that's the minimum combined number of vsats associated with both.) other things too numerous to mention. i've been in the satellite comm business for over 15 yrs. and think i have a sense for what's going on. the above represent my personal opinion, gut feel, and speculation. no malice is intended. just calling it the way i see it. good luck with your investments, gentlemen.