To: gbh who wrote (5033 ) 10/14/1999 12:52:00 AM From: Sir Francis Drake Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 10027
Gary, I guess we disagree. I see things very differently. The most important aspect of the situation w/ NITE is the fact that it is NOT just another OLB (Ken W's point that OLBs declined almost as much - though I'd point out the p/e valuations comparison doesn't work, since they are on the whole MUCH higher than NITE). KP/NITE management failed to sell the investment community on what NITE is. This is the alpha and the omega of stock management. If your business is substantially different, and you are unable to communicate that - you, as CEO, leader, symbol, spokesperson have FAILED. Listen, if it was all just a question of "nose to the grindstone, and valuation will take care of itself" - the market would look very different. AMZN couldn't even exist. You SELL A DREAM. You paint a picture. Jeff Bezos is a master at this - I watched him interviewed on TV many times. He is an absolute master - how long can he pull this off for, I don't know, but he is GOOD. Your dismissal of AMZN as an example, is very shallow. I think you are making the same mistake that countless investors/analysts make here, and is the reason why folks are puzzled by the phenom of AMZN. AMZN is just one of many e-tailers, but Bezos & Co. sold a dream on Wall Street - a vision. NITE is NOT the same business as just another OLB. Too bad KP doesn't have the skill to distinguish his business from the crowd - especially sad, because it IS a different business, unlike AMTD vs EGRP. It takes a better communicator, salesman to do that - KP is hopeless. <<Root cause of decline>> Sorry, again, you failed to heed the lesson of AMZN. AMZN margins are getting worse. By many measures, AMZN's model is falling apart. Yet, AMZN is higher today than at the time of last earnings. AMZN was able to sell the "good aspects", so it overwhelmed the "bad". NITE could have done exactly the same. "Yes we had a decline in profitablility, but we are using it to cause attrition among our competitors etc, etc, etc." KP should have come out ages ago and PREPARED THE INVESTMENT COMMUNITY FOR A DECLINE IN PROFITS - but sold them a FUTURE VISION. AMZN's Bezos has done that with each earnings season. He says in effect "be prepared for continued and INCREASING losses - but this is done to gather market share and momentum". Exactly what NITE should have done. Instead look at the HORRIBLE thing that NITE management did... It is easy to jeer at my examples of AMZN and MSFT. But that is because you are taking a very shallow look at what my point really is. OBVIOUSLY AMZN is in a different business. But that is not why I mentioned AMZN - I mentioned it as an example of how to sell A VISION. I mentioned it as an example of a CEO who MANAGES his shareprice as if his very life depended on it (because it does!). I mentioned MSFT, not because it is a monopoly - if you think that that is the only reason why MSFT became what it is - you are not only missing the point, but you have failed to understand what I was trying to tell you - MSFT has CONCIOUSLY **managed** their share price so that it became a crucial BUILDING BLOCK of company dominance. My point about MSFT was to show how THAT aspect of the "business" is well understood by Gates & Co., while KP... and how MSFT manages shareholder value, information etc vs the NITE shenanigans. NITE is a UNIQUE business, not just another OLB. KP never conveyed that. He never painted a picture for investors. He never "sold the sizzle" - just the opposite. I can think of many ways in which he made clear miss-steps. What it comes down to, is that the raw material was there - NITE as a UNIQUE business with an extraordiary vision. KP is a bad "painter" - indeed perhaps doesn't even understand the importance of that function of a CEO. Had we had a NITE-Bezos, NITE would not have declined "in concert with OLBs - how appalling, and how inappropriate". It would have held up much better - and the fact that it didn't is a disaster not just for shareholders in the short term, but in a very real business sense as well. NITE is interested in using equity to leverage themselves (per his CNBC appearance). Understandable - too bad that equity is worth a fraction of what it could be with a Bezos-type performance from a CEO. Now, he'll pay a lot MORE for aquisitions - a very practical consequences of the disastrous job KP and Co. did of managing their stock valuation. Gary, I don't think it makes much sense to make sarcastic remarks about my typing skills and comparisons of other stocks - it is better to think more deeply about this, because, my friend, you are missing the point. Reach a little deeper. Morgan