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Strategies & Market Trends : Piffer OT - And Other Assorted Nuts -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: mph who wrote (19403)	2/23/2000 11:08:00 AM
From: The Phoenix	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 63513

Hmmmmm.... well, to be honest that analysis is hard to argue with given valuations given to companies in the optics space. What really caught my eye was the investment from Kleiner Perkins - seems like everything they touch turns to gold. I might have to establish a new position. I'd love to see them down at $90 again (I may have missed my chance this morning) Hold on to that baby!!!!!! Looks very good! OG

To: mph who wrote (19403)	2/23/2000 12:19:00 PM
From: John Pitera	Respond to of 63513

this has helped MRVC this week: from saturday's Barron's -------------- Q: Surely this isn't your only fiberoptic play. A: You're right. Another name we like is MRV Communications, a technological leader in all sorts of fiberoptic products such as hubs, routers and switches to enhance the performance of broadband networks. These are next-generation products in hot demand. Q: The company has everything, seemingly, but earnings. A: Actually, it should break into the black once 1999 results are announced this week. MRV could earn a couple of cents a share. But look at the revenue growth. Its fiberoptic division alone could be producing $200 million in revenues in 2001, versus an anticipated $70 million this year. Applying a 15 multiple to those 2001 revenues, which is conservative these days, would yield a potential market valuation for this division of $3 billion. At around 78, the stock of the entire company is only worth $2.4 billion today. By our sum-of-the-parts calculation, MRV should be valued at $160-$200 a share. And just to make sure that this isn't lost on the stock market, MRV is expected to bring five of its subsidiaries public between now and early 2001. The stock is an easy double in the next year and a half if the story works. A lot will depend on the market, though. MRV is the largest position in our portfolio. Q: What else strikes your fancy? A: Scientific Atlanta. The company has been around a lot longer than some of our tech plays. But we like its potential, given the prospects for cable TV set-top boxes. The financial numbers are already starting to improve sharply. The December quarter came in at four cents above the expected 32 cents a share. Revenues were up 20% from the year-ago quarter's and 7% from the previous quarter's. Order backlogs stood at $463.8 million, handily beating the previous record of $372.7 million set in the June quarter. At around 104, the stock has been selling at slightly more than 50 times the $2 a share we think the company could earn in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2001. who is this masked equity portfolio manager?? The Driehaus Rules A star momentum player keeps swinging for the fences An Interview With Richard Driehaus ~ Richard Driehaus is something of an anomaly. Though well into middle age and a veteran of the bloody bear market of 1973-74, he's never lost his fancy for high-risk growth stocks. Most money managers profess to be trying to hit scratch singles or doubles. Not this guy. He swings for the fences on every trip to the plate. And in the main, his long-ball style has served him well. After bouncing around among several brokerage firms running special accounts, the Chicago native founded his own firm in 1979. Among other things, he became the lead broker for America Century's celebrated Ultra, Select and Growth funds, exchanging his growth-stock picks for commissions. The outsized performance of those funds during the 'Eighties was, in great part, a result of their covert relationship with Driehaus, if the truth be known. Driehaus also began running small and mid-cap portfolios for various institutional investors. Today, Driehaus Capital Management, which operates out of an old mansion in the Windy City, has some $6 billion under management, almost evenly spread between the institutional portfolios and a stable of five international mutual funds, led by $3 billion Driehaus International Growth. The performance of this complex has been remarkable. (Because many of the funds are designed for institutions, rather than individuals, they don't all show up in the listings run by Barron's and other publications.) International Growth has shown an average annual total return of 23% since inception in 1990, and sports a five-year growth rate of 31.8%. The domestic portfolios lagged for a time in the mid-1990s when big became beautiful and momentum investing went out of style. But since the October stock-market lows of 1998, Big Mo has come back with a vengeance. Last year, $1.8 billion Driehaus MidCap rose an astounding 222.4%, and $1.1 billion Driehaus Small Cap climbed 196.6%. The results boosted the two portfolios' 10-year annual average returns to 34.7% and 32.9%, respectively. Read on to see what this member of Barron's all-century mutual-fund team has to say about the current U.S. stock market and where he's placing his bets. -Jonathan R. Laing ---------- JP