Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Microcap & Penny Stocks : Globalstar Telecommunications Limited GSAT -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Rocket Scientist who wrote (7739)	10/5/1999 6:23:00 PM
From: djane	Respond to of 29987

Iridium Phone Carries the Call to Seal World's Biggest Takeover 10/5/99 12:38:00 PM Source: Bloomberg News Washington, Oct. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Iridium LLC, losing money and mired in bankruptcy court, has just turned a profit -- for Sprint Corp. Chairman William Esrey, who completed the biggest corporate takeover in history with an Iridium phone while horseback riding in Colorado. Esrey, who's had the satellite telephone for about six months, was using it the middle of a forest about four hours from civilization when he agreed to MCI WorldCom Inc.'s $129 billion stock and assumed-debt takeover of the No. 3 long-distance telephone company, Sprint spokesman Bill White said. Sprint has a 3.7 percent stake in Iridium. Iridium's telephones allow callers to place or take calls from practically anywhere on the planet through a constellation of 66 satellites. They failed to lure many customers, however, which critics blamed on the cost of the phone and the service. ``It's got to be a little more mainstream than the CEOs doing billion-dollar deals,' J.P. Morgan analyst Marc Crossman said. Iridium, whose biggest investor is Motorola Inc., defaulted on $1.55 billion in bank loans in August. The phone, initially the size of a brick and priced at about $3,000, was expected to have as many as 600,000 customers by the end of 1999. It has only about 20,000 customers, analysts have said. It has since cut the price of the phones, and dropped the calling rates by as much as 65 percent. Iridium was excited by its latest testimonial. ``That's great,' Iridium spokeswoman Michelle Lyle said. ``We are glad that Iridium phone was a useful tool for Mr. Esrey to conduct his business. In remote areas, even in the U.S., Iridium can be the only communication solution to fulfill the lack of terrestrial communication.' Shares of Iridium World Communications Ltd., the publicly traded arm of Iridium LLC, were halted from trading on Aug. 13 and haven't traded since. At 3 1/16, they had fallen 92 percent since the beginning of the year. Copyright 1998-99, Bloomberg L.P. All Rights Reserved.