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Technology Stocks : CYPOST (POST) Data Encryption -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Eric Fader who wrote (63)10/4/1999 5:21:00 PM
From: Q.  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 77
 
Eric, it was an unimpressive performance by the office-supplies salesman who now serves as the CEO of CyPost.

To start with, he forgot to invoke the safe harbor for forward looking statements. So if any shareholders out there would like a little insurance policy, you might just want to tape the replay and keep it in case your stock goes down.

His overview of the company lasted only a couple of minutes. Five at the most. That included his assessment of recent market activity, which seemed to be the most important thing to him. He implied the activity on Friday was due to shorts and then short covering. He claimed there are 350 - 400 k shares short. He also said there were >50 people with the co. Made some hype about how many billions of dollars the ISP industry is. But mostly he didn't have much to say.

He then took questions for an hour. There were probably about 20-25 people who asked questions.

Aside from a broker who claimed to be with Charles Schwab, all the callers were individuals, many of them unsophisticated. No institutions -- that's a very bad sign.

One bizarre practice of Berry's was to ask every caller "are you a shareholder" and "how many shares do you own". I've listened to probably 100 conference calls before, and I've never heard this. Never. Very bush league. And very bad style. The company is public, but small investors are not; they have no need to disclose anything of that sort to the public, and it was extremely unsuitable for Berry to invade their privacy this way.

Nothing much interesting in the questions, really. Some hype from Berry that he will be profitable in Q1 2000 and on the nasdaq in 2000 as well. (No mention of how he'll have to find outside directors first). He mentioned another stock promotion activity coming up (a TV interview, similar to one that FNTT had, with Caspar Weinberger this summer ... FWIW you can check a quote on FNTT and see that that particular BB stock is a lot lower since then).

Nothing useful about dilution, revenues, liquidity.

No mention of whether he's found a second customer yet for the software; he just sort of blew off a caller's suggestion that it be sold in retail stores.

No mention of how he's going to finance the company. This is a biggie, since the balance sheet is very thin in the form 10, and the auditor said there was substantial doubt the co. could continue as a going concern.

No sensible explanation of the purported synergy between running an ISP and peddling some software for email. IMO, at about $35 a copy, the software is going to take orders of magnitude more sales volume than can be generated internally with his handful of ISP clients.

On the balance, Berry talked more about the stock, and less about sensible business plans, than I would like. Overall, he gave me the impression of being just a stock hustler.