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Technology Stocks : Semi Equipment Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gottfried who wrote (38723)	3/25/2008 4:55:15 PM
From: Return to Sender	Respond to of 95597

Ouch! Calling the loan $1.5 billion loan in early??? Yahoo says that A has only about that much cash avaliable. finance.yahoo.com I guess this points out the problems Merrill Lynch is having much more than anything about A. This kind of action makes it all the more important to find a clean balance sheet in the companies we invest in going forward. RtS

To: Gottfried who wrote (38723)	3/25/2008 7:55:05 PM
From: Kirk ©	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 95597

Interesting. One of my small companies just paid off its convertible loan with a line of credit it got at Silicon Valley bank. As a shareholder, I took that as a good sign that a "regular bank" was happy enough to rely on the business model to generate cash flow to make the loan payments. I believe the loan was less than cash on hand and it was used to fund day-to-day operations. For Agilent, if they have to pay back $1.5B of a $3B loan, it probably puts a damper on any acquisition or dividend plans they may have had until they find a new source of funds. With rates so low, this is a good time to raise funds if you have the cash flow. Agilent has the cash flow so I don't see it as an issue, but I'd sure like them to have the cash available to gobble up and "steal" some struggling smaller company if they found the right deal.