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Technology Stocks : PCW - Pacific Century CyberWorks Limited -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: ms.smartest.person who wrote (157)	1/27/2001 9:23:06 PM
From: ms.smartest.person	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2248

Pacific Century Cyberworks' change in fortune by eCountries' Hong Kong correspondent (Mon, 22 Jan 2001 10:19:20) Richard Li's dream of a telecoms and internet empire is foundering on a catastrophic fall in share price of his start-up, Pacific Century Cyberworks. Only a few months ago Li was Hong Kong's golden boy, the inheritor of billionaire father Li Ka-shing's Midas touch with his audacious takeover of Hong Kong Telecom. Can superboy still be a superman? Richard Li Tzar-kai doesn't talk much to the press these days. Nor does anyone who works for him. Pacific Century Cyberworks, the internet start-up Li formed in spring 1999, has seen a near-disastrous fall in its share price. From a peak of HK$28.50 ($3.66) the stock fell to a trough of HK$3.775 - a staggering 85% plunge - in less than a year. PCCW has become the closest thing the business press has to a hounded, wayward celebrity. Executives won't talk to the hateful hacks, whom they believe are partly to blame for decimating their share options. "Why don't you guys give us a break?" a senior PCCW manager screamed at an erstwhile press contact in a Hong Kong bar recently. "Just for a day or so, you know? Write about something else?" It is hard not to feel some sympathy for Li and his faltering dream of a Pacific 21st Century. Raised to the heavens by the technology and telecommunications stock mania - shares leapt 2,400% in 1999 - his fall from grace was cruel. PCCW posted the worst performance in the Hang Seng index in 2000. What made the plummet more excruciating was that Li struck both the deal for Hong Kong Telecom with Britain's Cable and Wireless and a strategic alliance with Australia's Telstra largely on the basis of options. When the agreement was signed with cable and Wireless in August, for instance, PCCW's shares were worth HK$15.30. The subsequent fall has prompted rumours that C and W may follow its autumn sale of a 4.9% stake in PCCW at HK$9.98 by dumping its remaining 14.9% in mid-February. By January 17, such talk had knocked a further 20% from PCCW's stock since New Year. ecountries.com