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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Madharry who wrote (8777)	10/27/1999 12:57:00 PM
From: Wright Sullivan	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78658

Armin- Exactly correct on the two hurdles which must be overcome for this deal (JOE/FLA) to go through. But there is no question that FLA will be "rationalized" in some regard, because JOE's Rummell has clearly stated for many months that a railroad does not fit in with JOE's core real estate business. Perhaps the very recent quarterly JOE conf. call is still available. It was informative. Once this spinoff is digested by the market, I personally don't see much of a catalyst for JOE until around a year from now, because it will take that long for some key developments on the Florida panhandle coast to start bearing fruit. The jury is very much out on Rummell's overall plan for building a vertically integrated real-estate operation. Looking on a much longer timeframe, say 7-15 years, JOE looks like a great bet, as the boomers retire and North Florida becomes a hot spot for development. I think this is inevitable, and the price appreciation of properties in well-managed communities can be dizzying. Beachfront and coastal property isn't commodity-type land. I own JOE in an IRA and am holding for the very long term. Regarding FLA, I am very impressed with the new management team over there, and FLA presents an interesting combination of an improving core business (RR and real estate) and the wildcard of their telecom division, which just signed a fiber-swap arrangement with Enron which extends their network to Atlanta and New Orleans. Nobody knows exactly what they plan to do with this network, or if there will be a glut or paucity of intercity broadband media. So wildcard is the operative word here. I still need to crunch all the numbers, but I'm surprised JOE hasn't risen more today. -Wright