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To: Bubba who wrote (3346)11/28/1997 11:41:00 AM
From: Bubba  Read Replies (2) | Respond to of 10227
 
I have read some of the street research since the Q3 report.

Here is a very brief synopsis.

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JP Morgan - Buy rating. YE '98 target $40. Q4 subs - 325,000. Same for Q1 '98. Liked "cost of service" falling. Also liked cost of adds at about $490. Below their estimate of about $540. Est Q4 cost of adds $475. Noted indirect channels are 40% of sales at this point, up from 35%. Apparantly a big factor of lower cost of adds. Several other firms commented on this.

Lehman - Neutral rating. YE '98 target $29. Q4 subs - 370,000. Q1 '98 405,000. 1998 ARPU $67.87. Total 1998 adds incr to 1.6mm from 1.3mm. Galaxy 1H 1998. 35% smaller, incr volume, 2nd line, "scan time improvements". 2H 1998 - "Eagle" - smaller phone still.

Deutsch Morgan Grenfell - Hold rating - Target $22. Q4 subs 340,000. Very concerned about big cap ex in 1997 & 1998. Brazil regs allow biz service but apparantly limit interconnect to 30%
of total. Apparantly about in line w/ estimates.

Pru - Buy rating - Reiterated info indicates best as a commercial use, not retail.

BT Alex Brown - Strong buy rating. Q4 subs - 315,000. ARPU - $68. 1998 adds - 1.2mm

Bear Stearns - Attractive rating

AA Chicago Corp - Buy rating - $34 target.

(P.S.) - My memory is Montgomery has a $48 price target. Can anyone confirm?

Most of the research repeated stuff from the press release and 10-Q, to which we all have access so I didn't use up bytes to repeat. Also, most expressed concerned about higher than expected cap ex. Cap ex was $477mm. Est was about $225mm-$250mm.

My comment - Since valuation is done as DCF, the higher than expected cap ex really hurts the valuation model. Also, I think this raises their concern about future financing needs, debt or equity. Between the lines, I think they don't really believe the high ARPU numbers are anywhere near sustainable. Combined w/ no big change in 1998 subs for most of them, that understandably hurts the math of a DCF based analysis. Keep in mind, DCF is just a math exercise totally based on assumptions. Garbage in - garbage out.

Also, I think the release about retail users right before the earnings has them concerned. Conceptually, if NXTL has the demand for high ARPU users, why pimp themselves to low ARPU retail and use up capacity, unless you can direct the use to off peak hours? I don't necessarily
agree with this is a large concern but I think they have it nonetheless.

Bottom line - my prediction of a $35 YE 1997 price looks shaky unless Street opinion changes. Essentially, we "need" them near term if we want the stock to do better. Long term their opinion doesn't matter and neither does ours as the facts will out. I think their concerns are overblown but my opinion of most Street anlaysts has been previously posted.

Headed for an early nap,

Gluttonous Bub



To: Bubba who wrote (3346)11/28/1997 11:49:00 AM
From: Tavros  Read Replies (3) | Respond to of 10227
 
Buba/Others,

Over the Thanksgiving day, I was talking to a few NXTL users from the New York area and the feedback was disturbing. There were talking of network difficulties both with the telephone and the direct connect features. According to them, many times during the day, the get either "Network trouble" when they use the direct connect or "no system available" when they use the phone. I asked them if they talked to NXTL reps. The answer was yes and the response has been varying with answers like ..."system is busy", "you went through blind spots" (exits 31 to 35 on the LIE), "your equipment need to be tested"...etc. Moreover, the problems have mushroomed over the past 6 months as the number of subscribers have increased.

Since I am not a technical person, I asked my cousin who is a network engineer and he speculated that these are symptoms of either limited bandwidth (Arnie, pay attention here if you are reading this message), or lack of complete coverage by towers/cellsites. I am more worried if the source of the problem is the first, because there is no short-term solution to the lack of bandwidth/channels (you may have seen another message I have posted about the fact that the very nature of iDEN requires more use of the existing bandwidth to take care of the fact that it uses non-contiguous channels). The second can be addressed with additional towers.

Are concerns like this causing the stock to be fading recently? Or is it the wait and see attitude of investors who, having pushed the stock from 12 to 30 this year, are now saying, "show me more - in terms of real earnings" before they bid the stock further (if this is the case, we should be seeing NXTL between 25 to 30 for the next 6 to 12 months). Feedback on the above and or additional information would be highly appreciated.

Overstaffed
Tavros