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To: Jon Koplik who wrote (114112)	2/23/2002 9:55:20 AM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Metaphore du jour... (with all this talk of swimming upstream, market disasters, etc) home.attbi.com Did the longs make it under the bridge this week ?

To: Jon Koplik who wrote (114112)	2/23/2002 12:43:32 PM
From: grinder965	Respond to of 152472

Jon, Surprised it doesn't happen more often. Here's another interesting eBay story: EBay stops auction of H-P votes By Mike Tarsala, CBS.MarketWatch.com Last Update: 4:59 PM ET Feb. 22, 2002 PALO ALTO, Calif. (CBS.MW) -- The price to decide 1,000 proxy votes on Hewlett-Packard's controversial plan to buy Compaq climbed to $90 in an online auction Friday before EBay canceled the bidding. An auction that started Wednesday on EBay promised bidders the right to vote about 1,000 shares, representing 0.000052 percent of H-P's stock, either for or against the HP/Compaq deal, at the bidder's request. The auction generated 35 bids before EBay disallowed it late Friday. "Neither side wants to lose," said the auction's online advertisement. "This vote could be so close that only a few votes could determine whether the merger is approved or not. I control more than 1000 shares. That could easily determine which way the vote goes. I am hereby selling my proxy votes to the highest bidder." The share seller, who has an e-mail name of Jim Smith, claimed to own the H-P shares and says he fully intended to go through with any deal. He did not reveal his identity. Employees at EBay canceled all bids in the auction once it was discovered by EBay and reviewed, according to a spokesman. "We've had people try to sell everything from votes in the presidential election, to votes for prom queen," said Kevin Pursglove, EBay spokesman. "EBay isn't a place where you can sell your vote under any circumstances." Pending regulatory approval, the $20.5 billion H-P/Compaq merger is to be decided by a shareholder vote in Cupertino, Calif., on March 19. See "Barrage in the Garage," our special report on the merger plan. The selling of proxy votes online doesn't break any federal laws, as long as purchasers are not defrauded in the transaction, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. "The federal disclosure issues arise when you are soliciting a proxy," said Martin Dunn, associate director of the SEC's corporate finance division. "The question of someone selling their vote isn't the same as soliciting a proxy. So it really comes down to state law." One bidder, a man who says he's a retired 15-year H-P employee and an ex-employee of the H-P spin-off Agilent Technologies (A: news, chart, profile), says he bowed out of the bidding at $20. "I've wasted more than $20 in the past on stupider things," said "StuffManMike," who lives in Novi, Mich., and asked that he be identified only by his EBay (EBAY: news, chart, profile) screen name. "I am very against the merger, and my unofficial informal poll of current H-P employees shows that the majority are also against it." An H-P poll had suggested that company employees support management's plan to buy Compaq, while a poll conducted earlier this week sponsored by David Woodley Packard, son of H-P co-founder David Packard, said the opposite. Shares of H-P (HWP: news, chart, profile) lost 17 cents to close at $19.29 on the Big Board, while Compaq (CPQ: news, chart, profile) shares climbed 21 cents to $10.50. Mike Tarsala is a San Francisco-based reporter for CBS.MarketWatch.com.