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Non-Tech : Berkeley Technology Limited (BLKYY) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: J. Conley who wrote (532)	8/24/2000 9:25:10 PM
From: James Calladine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 955

WHAT IS THE MARKET SAYING.....? I think the market wants us to believe: -- LDP is in the Internet IPO business -- The Internet IPO business is finished, over, dead -- Therefore LDP is just some weird, tax-shelter-based, insurance and annuity business too complicated to bother getting to understand Then, when the message has gotten through to enough bigger players, who have accumulated what they want to accumulate of LDP, ALL OF A SUDDEN LDP will be: -- a huge cash cow -- a retail financial organization -- a traditional insurance company -- operating internationally -- with a PROVEN, hugely successful VC operation -- generating obscenely large profits -- worthy of normal multliples of earnings Of course I may just be dreaming again, or maybe I have read too many stories of market manipulation, and maybe the market is completely free and open, wise and omniscient....! You pays your money and you takes your choices..... Best wishes, Jim

To: J. Conley who wrote (532)	8/25/2000 4:06:52 AM
From: architect*	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 955

J, Not sure LDP reports revenue exactly like CMGI and ICGE so $162 seems lofty to me. <g> For the VC unit, my brain can figure Total Asset value + original cost of private holdings times a multiplier. The Total Asset value deducts liabilities and expenses. So I agree the VC unit should have "a multiplier" for private holdings. Say LDP made a private investment in a fiber optics or wireless company in 1996 and it IPO's in 2000. The 2000 IPO could yield a huge appreciation on the original 1996 investment maybe 1500%. That 1500% return on investment should justify a multiplier and considerable enterprise value. The revenues and liabilities as reported "all lumped together" from LDP's four streams of income, makes total asset value harder to comprehend than a pure VC company. A VC company typically has a "big cash burn rate" and huge windfall revenues when an asset is sold, so the secondary revenue streams of LDP help balance money flow. but remember CMGI is projected to lose $5 bucks a share for the next 2 years, so market appreciation is only part of the story. IMO the market can't easily value a pre-IPO holding, so they don't. Maybe consideration for the valuation of the original 1996 investment minus a discount. Prudential's analyst claim to be befuddled with valuation for CMGI's VC holdings, so where does that leave the rest of us? The market today is saying many "incubated dot.com companies" will have negative earnings for many years, high failure rates, huge cash burn rates, too much risk, so no multiplier....dude IMO this creates good future value for LDP. LDP invests in late stage development companies with lower risk than "dot.com companies in incubation" In addition to market appreciation after the IPO, some private companies (like ISIL pre-IPO) had earnings, growth rate, revenues, liabilities. Someone could say ISIL is like RFMD. RFMD = $6 billion MC so ISIL = $6 billion MC. Nobody's doing this, so still no multiplier. Until the CMGI's and the LDP's educate the street or the IPO market becomes a no-brainer again, we can only hope for a multiplier. john