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Strategies & Market Trends : Value Investing -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Senior who wrote (15654)	10/17/2002 3:08:46 AM
From: Madharry	Respond to of 78516

I never followed it that closely but its amazing to me that a company with that type of brand recognition and seeming dominance of its market is now contemplating bankruptcy. the past two years has seen too many instances of self dealing by insiders to the detriment of shareholders. It amazes me the corporate malfeasance that these people have gotten away with and the amazing brashness with which they they claim not to have known the current state of the company at the time that they were selling millions of dollars worth of shares.

To: Paul Senior who wrote (15654)	10/17/2002 4:08:20 PM
From: Wallace Rivers	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 78516

Two cigar butts I'm looking at now - S and MOT. MOT, which I've owned in the past, because I've got a degree of familiarity with it, also because a money manager I'm familiar with started a position in it at prices above 10. S, because I've held in the past, thus the same familiarity, I like the potential of the Lands End acquisition, plus the simple reason it has gotten the ..... kicked out of it.

To: Paul Senior who wrote (15654)	10/17/2002 10:56:34 PM
From: James Clarke	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 78516

UHAL I looked at many times 3-5 years ago and passed (fortunately). I was very close to buying it several times. What kept me away wasn't the corporate governance, it was the balance sheet. Debt. Which brings on a thought I'd like to share. I was giving a speech yesterday and a business school student asked me why the two companies I was highlighting have no debt. She pointed out that her finance class taught her that debt provides a tax shield, so they're leaving money on the table by being debt free. I responded something like, "Great, you saved $20 million in taxes. But you're bankrupt. Congratulations." I do not like debt, and I like managements that don't like debt. Its not just the financial leverage. I just find that managements that hate debt as much as I do also have other characteristics I like, and managements willing to take on massive amounts of debt have other characteristics I don't like.