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Technology Stocks : Cisco Systems, Inc. (CSCO) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RetiredNow who wrote (63544)	4/14/2003 2:10:02 AM
From: Don Lloyd	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 77400

mindmeld, However, dilution is never* good for shareholders, and with Cisco dilution has reached problematic proportions....* Isn't this a pretty one-sided analysis? It's like saying that paying for production materials is never good for shareholders. Or that paying salaries is never good for shareholders. Are there NO actions that a company can take that are of net benefit to shareholders if they happen to result in any dilution? The only cure for that is buybacks coupled with a cessation of grants. Please explain just exactly how a stock buyback cures anything. When a company either buys or sells stock at the current market price, the change in the shareholders' share of the company cash after the transaction is exactly offset by the change in their ownership proportion of the total company. All that changes is the company's leverage as measured by its price to cash ratio. If a company has too many shares, however that is possible, maybe because their accounting software can't handle that big a number, wouldn't a reverse split accomplish the same result without expending any shareholder cash? Regards, Don

To: RetiredNow who wrote (63544)	4/14/2003 2:12:45 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 77400

Well mindmeld, either way you cut it... expensing options or no, then I would say Cisco is not the investment for most here. I firmly believe that expensing options will kill cisco. They will have to make some drastic changes in corporate culture to survive with no options. Either dump R&D like oracle did, or not be so agressive wrt profitability, or something. As a shareholder I prefer options as a compensation medium over pay at this juncture, since I am not sure when or if we will see a meaningful recovery in this sector. Options cost me nothing right now, pay costs a lot. Thats the way I see it. I believe the kind of people that cisco incents with options are financially secure and don't need to work for salary, unless that salary is high. If FASB rules against expensing options (or expensing them they way many here think they should be expensed, which imo is the whole issue) then things will likely remain as they are for cisco. They will continue to grant options as they are now, and shareholders on this thread should just move on. Because there are definitely some out there like me who think Cisco is delivering on every metric and is the best managed company in tech. I don't see any reason to fix something that aint broke. (I also happen to know that working there has become somewhat painful due to cost cutting, and imo morale would be low if not for options) I know you think the expensing methods proposed currently will eventually come to pass, but I'm not so sure, since I read there are legal issues coming up with black sholes. Anything is possible.