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

To: Paul Tran who wrote (25942)	12/4/1997 10:31:00 PM
From: blankmind	Respond to of 61433

The Wall Street Journal Interactive Edition -- December 4, 1997 Ascend Jumps on Takeover Rumors, Reassuring Comments From CEO Dow Jones Newswires NEW YORK -- Ascend Communications Inc. shares jumped 14% Thursday amid talk that Lucent Technologies Inc. might be considering a purchase of the maker of networking gear. 3Com Cuts Income Forecast, Due to Inventory Clear-Out (Dec. 3) Lucent Agrees to Acquire Livingston for $650 Million (Oct. 16) Analysts, however, questioned whether the rumor was more than wild speculation since Lucent in October announced it would buy Livingston Enterprises Inc., also a maker of remote-access products. Some also attributed Thursday's buying to encouraging news on Ascend's earnings. President and Chief Executive Mory Ejabat said the networking company expects to meet fourth-quarter consensus estimates of 23 cents a share. Thursday, Ascend shares rose $3.25 to close at $26.875 on volume of 17.5 million shares, nearly double the daily average of 9.1 million. Speaking at the Deutsche Morgan Grenfell technology conference in Laguna Niguel, Calif., Mr. Ejabat also said the company is comfortable with Wall Street estimates of $1.05 a share for 1997 and $1.15 for 1998, according to Michael Ashby, Ascend's chief financial officer. Ascend earned 32 cents a share in the fourth quarter of 1996 and 89 cents for the full year. But those numbers are not comparable since the company acquired Cascade Communications Corp. earlier this year. Ascend's outlook was welcome news for the networking industry two days after two of the biggest participants in the sector, 3Com Corp. and Cabletron Systems Inc., warned that they would miss consensus estimates for their November quarters. Ascend itself prereleased disappointing results last quarter due to problems with its MAX TNT remote access concentrator product, which Internet service providers use to aggregate users and connect them to computer networks. The Alameda, Calif., company had trouble getting 56 kilobits-per-second modem cards to interface properly with the product. The TNT also has cut off dial-in users and overheated. Weakness in the Japanese market and pricing pressure from Cisco Systems Inc. and 3Com's U.S. Robotics unit in the remote access concentrator market also plagued Ascend. Return to top of page Copyright c 1997 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved.