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To: Smartypts who wrote (869)	7/27/2000 10:17:32 PM
From: rupers	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 1766

Smartypts sorry in responding so tardily. As you already probably are aware, LDP is primarily an insurance/finance company who also, through its Berkley Investments subsidiary, is an incubator (provides venture capital) to upstart tech firms, primarily those in fibre optics and wireless. Hardly any "dot bomb" companies. The following link shows their holdings ... prior to the last two day debacle for high tech, the value of their holdings essentially equaled their market cap, so in essence, you were getting the insurance/finance ops free. siliconinvestor.com note: I believe the number of RAMP shares is actually a million less than what's shown on the chart. The bad news: The last 2-day BIG drop in New Focus (NUFO) really put a dent in their holdings value (NUFO went from over 150/share to just over a 100/share). There's a bright side to this in that NUFO needed the extra capital from its secondary pub offering (just announced, which helped plummet the price) to enhance its manufacturing abilities and, derivatively, its earnings potential. The good news: VINA Technologies (VINA) will soon have its IPO (I believe on August 8th), expected to be offered at a price between $ 12 and 14/share. LDP will have 2,944,405 shares of VINA, which equates to about $ 40 Million (unfortunately, that doesn't make up for the recent NUFO value drop). Expect LDP to also begin quarterly earnings report, and the next report is due out in the second week of August and should be an eye popper, even though the earnings will not all be realized (just reflecting increase in value as of end of 2d Qtr for their stock holdings + revenue from their insurance/finance ops). We're estimating it'll show somewhere between 5 to 6 dollars a share, which ain't too bad for a company currently trading at $ 14-15 a share. That's why I'm so upbeat about LDP .. of course, I was much MORE upbeat on LDP two days ago when NUFO was sitting at $ 150 share. Don't sell .. think you'll still see a good return in a relatively short time on this long investment. cheers & best regards and luck