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Technology Stocks : Compaq -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E_K_S who wrote (73885)	12/15/1999 7:00:00 PM
From: Captain Jack	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Yes Eric,, just like AV and other opportunities to take cake of shareholders... maybe a 'grant' of cpq shares? That is all they have given away and keeping it all has not helped the share price.. oh, I forgot-- the div,, WOW..

To: E_K_S who wrote (73885)	12/15/1999 8:40:00 PM
From: rupert1	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 97611

Eric: I see others have replied to your question to me about distributing CMGI shares to COMPAQ shareholders. Brian Cranston and I had a discussion about it on the Yahoo Club Board earlier - he has made some calculations and has some good ideas. My view is that shareholders should disregard all the mumbo jumbo COMPAQ put out about the COMPAQ-CMGI deal being of strategic value. In my opinion that was intended to draw the teeth from the criticism of the deal. The China deal announced the other day involving COMPAQ-CMGI did more for CMGI than it did for COMPAQ. I would guess there are very few deals that CMGI could put COMPAQ into that COMPAQ could not have got into anyway. Then I think shareholders should make a concerted effort to demand that COMPAQ undo the CMGI deal. They should get an agreement to shorten the lock-up period for the 17% COMPAQ owns with a view to distributing those shares to COMPAQ shareholders, along with the 17% of Alta Vista we still own. The target date for the distribution could be 1st June, 2000. If there are contractual or regulatory reasons why the lock-up period cannot be renegotiated, then COMPAQ should look for some other creative solution. The guiding principle should be to increase COMPAQ shareholder value. For example the CMGI, Alta Vista and perhaps some other holdings, could be placed in a special trust fund, and then shares in this trust fund could be distributed to shareholders. These shares could be traded. When the lock-up periods for the original CMGI/AV shares expires, the holders of the shares could disband the trust fund and get title to the shares in CMGI and AV. If COMPAQ were to announce such a scheme it would have an immediate positive effect on the COMPAQ share price. I know the number of shares would be small, but people would pay more for COMPAQ to get some CMGI/AV. In a sense, COMPAQ would be harnessing the internut craze to its own stock price. Such a plan should be put forward by shareholders before the AGM - the AGM is under the control of Rosen and I think he would deflect shareholder interest in this issue just as he did at the last AGM. Then he said he heard shareholder demands for Alta Vista to be floated to increase shareholder value, and he gave the impression, without stating, that after figuring out how best to do it, Alta Vista would be floated. We all know what happened a couple of months later. In addition to the benefits listed above, I believe such a scheme would go a long way to giving COMPAQ's the image of a shareholder-friendly company. It needs a makeover.