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Technology Stocks : Ascend Communications (ASND) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Gary Korn who wrote (20461)	11/2/1997 3:53:00 AM
From: Chuzzlewit	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

Gary, you're forgetting the dilution. There are currently 188.9M ASND shares outstanding and 345.9M COMS shares o/s, so the combined company would have 534.8M shares o/s if the conversion were 1:1. The combined market capitalization is $19,454.9M (using Friday's closing prices) which would yield a price per share of about $36 3/8 assuming the street were neutral about the merger. Look at what happened when MCAF announced a merger with NETG. My guess is that if the merger were to be announced ASND would trade at about $35 1/2 - $36, and COMS would trade at about $35 3/4 - $36 1/2. Regards, Paul

To: Gary Korn who wrote (20461)	11/2/1997 7:45:00 PM
From: Bobo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 61433

To all discussing the positives of an COMS/ ASND merger. You are smoking some funny stuff because this is not the answer for either company. This would one a detrimental move by both parties. Cisco mgt would be giddy to see it. Review the following. - Already the two existing mergers ASND/CSCC and COMS/USRX are half digested. A further merger would only complicate and disenchant employees and create an organizational mess. - Huge product overlap in RAS would exist. One of the remote acess lines would have to be nuked or a nasty product integration process would be required. Either would only cause customer confusion and reinforce Cisco as the only choice for those not already there. - Huge sales force overlap in the ISP market would exist. Ascend and 3com currently call on the same base of ISP's so half of this portion of the sales force would be axed. - Synergy between corp and ISP solutions would not be nearly as compelling since 3com does not have the Cisco's IP dominance in the corporate market. I could go on but I will spare the hot air. The merger would only allow Cisco to gain a year or two of momentum. IMO both Ascend and 3com have a far better chance of delivering in their respective areas and being more nimble the Cisco that will deliver everything to all markets...BTW, pass me that bong, it must be good stuff.