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Technology Stocks : ESST-the new beginning. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: WTSherman who wrote (3378)	6/24/2002 7:10:55 PM
From: SemiBull	Respond to of 3493

ESS Technology Updates Guidance for 3rd Quarter Company Reiterates Q2 Revenue, Margins and Earnings Expected to Exceed Previous Expectations FREMONT, Calif., June 24 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- ESS Technology, Inc. (Nasdaq: ESST - News), the world's leading provider of DVD and VCD chips today announced updated guidance for the third quarter of 2002. ESS expects third quarter revenue and earnings to exceed previous guidance. The Company expects third quarter revenue to be approximately $86 - $90 million, compared with previous guidance of $82 - $87 million. The Company also expects gross margins to be in-line with or above previous guidance of 38% - 40% and net income per diluted share of between $0.35 - $0.38 in the third quarter, compared to previous guidance of $0.25 to $0.30. The Company also reiterated its current second quarter expectation of revenue greater than $84 million, compared with previous guidance of $76 - $79 million. The Company expects gross margins to be above previous guidance of 38% - 40% and net income per diluted share of greater than $0.34 in the second quarter, compared to previous guidance of $0.24 to $0.28. Robert Blair, president and CEO of ESS Technology said, "ESS Technology continues to see strong demand for digital entertainment products both for the current quarter and throughout the balance of 2002. We also see continued strong margins because of the introduction of more functions and features in our products, the increase in the percentage of our DVD revenues, and our ongoing product cost reduction efforts. We are especially excited about the market's acceptance and many new design wins for our new Vibratto DVD products with their many new features, and expect that this product family will be our largest selling product by Q3 of this year as our customers grow in their markets and we continue to expand our DVD market share." Mr. Blair continued, "We believe 2003 should be an even stronger year for ESS Technology as many of our other new products ramp into volume production. These products include our VibrattoII product family with the front-end servo, Vibratto MPEG decoder and video encoder integrated into a single DVD system-on-a-chip, the Visba3 family of VCD products which integrates a video encoder functionality into our current Visba2 decoder family to serve the growing VCD market throughout Asia, and our new MPEG encoder family of products which enables consumer entertainment products that digitally record television programs, movies and music onto hard-drives and/or DVD-recordable drives. "Overall, we believe our strategy of becoming the leader in the emerging digital entertainment market is working, and we expect to introduce innovative new products that will enable ESS to continue as the leader in the fast-growing digital video playback market while expanding our product offerings into related digital entertainment opportunities such as MPEG encoding products and set-top-boxes. We believe that our new products and our market leading position will enable ESS to continue to grow revenues and earnings in the second half of this year and in 2003. We invite our investors to join our earnings conference call on July 24th for more details about our business," Mr. Blair concluded. About ESS Technology ESS Technology, Inc., is the world's leading supplier of VCD and DVD chips. ESS provides high-performance feature-rich products for the rapidly growing DVD and digital entertainment markets. The Company is also a leading provider of products that enable the emergence of digital home systems delivering and managing entertainment and information in the home. ESS, headquartered in Fremont, California, has R&D, sales, and technical support offices worldwide. ESS Technology's common stock is traded on the NASDAQ under the symbol ESST. ESS Technology's web site address is: esstech.com . The matters discussed in this news release include certain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, the impact of competitive products and pricing, the timely availability and acceptance of the Company's new products, the dependence on continued growth in demand for consumer multimedia products, and the other risks detailed from time to time in the SEC reports of ESS, including the reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. SOURCE: ESS Technology, Inc.

To: WTSherman who wrote (3378)	6/26/2002 11:21:12 AM
From: WTSherman	Respond to of 3493

I was wondering today if there was any chance the Chan's would let ESST be bought out. The numbers are pretty compelling: stock is selling for $16-17/share, at the end of this quarter the company will have about $5/share in cash with no debt. Earnings for this year should be about $1.70 or more, earnings for next year should be even better if their new design wins prove as valuable and successful as their current ones are. An offer @$25/share would amount to paying $20/share for the company(subtracting cash) for this a buyer would get probable future earnings of $2/share or more(for next year) which means they could buy the company for 10X earnings. For just about every semi company out there this would be a huge boost to earnings, since almost nobody is making any money. Any thoughts on this out there? Who might be a candidate, if any? Would Chan's let this happen?