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Technology Stocks : AUTOHOME, Inc -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: E. Davies who wrote (29439)	11/28/2001 5:58:33 PM
From: FR1	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29970

ATT has this all figured out. Don't forget Armstrong sent his best ATT technical guys to ATHM years ago to help straighten things. So ATT understands the ATHM system extremely well. According to the letter that all ATT/ATHM users received recently, ATT has built a parallel network and is ready to "flip the switch" if ATHM decides to go dark. I am sure ATT has offered this service to Cox and Comcast. So ATT is saying "Sell me the company for ~$300 million or I won't pay a penny. Go ahead and shut it down. I dare you. ATT is ready to switch all the customers on a second's notice." If you call ATT's bluff you lose everything and don't get a dime for the business. If you sell it, you get pennies on the dollar and nothing for shareholders. The good thing is that this whole mess is coming to a head and will be settled one way or the other in the immediate future. Once that is done we will know who owns what and the owners can get on the stick and start putting money into development of the cable network. The only way ATT can get hurt is if the court somehow states that ATT as liable for all ATHM debts. A lawyer can correct this but I don't think the bankruptcy judge has that authority (they are only empowered to dispose of ATHM). ATT can, and probably will, be sued by bondholders for damages but ATT will point to this incident and say it was ATHM and the bondholders that shut down the system and made it worthless so they should get nothing. Another interesting point: If ATHM goes dark then ATT can bid on the now useless hardware. Maybe they will bid 1/10 of the ~$300 mil.