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

To: joshi who wrote (26119)	12/5/1997 9:08:00 AM
From: DZOO	Respond to of 61433

From Briefing.com:ASCEND COMMUNICATIONS INC. (ASND) 26 7/8 CLOSED. Shares of networking access products concern are expected to remain active this morning as the rumors of a possible acquisition are still swirling around this issue. According to various news reports, Lucent Technologies (LU 79 3/16) or Northern Telecom (NT 93 5/8) are said to be interested in making a bid for the networking access concern, although this appears to be an old story that has resurfaced again. At the same time, CNBC is reporting that Lucent made a $35 a share offer for Ascend, but that ASND turned it down because it is seeking at least $40 a share for the company. Talk is that Lucent may be ready to raise its bid for Ascend, but then again, all this is speculation given that Lucent recently acquired a privately held company that does pretty much what Ascend does. And given all this takeover talk, yesterday Ascend's CEO Mory Ejabat said at the Deutsche Morgan Grenfell technology conference that he expects the company to meet 4Q estimates of $0.23 a share, versus year-ago net of $0.32 a share. The company's CFO Michael Ashby also said that the company was comfortable with 1997 and 1998 full year estimates of $1.05 and $1.45 a share, respectively. While the takeover story is likely to gather much of the attention of investors and speculators this morning, the stock should do just as well on the news that it will meet market expectations at a time when other networking entities (3Com and Cabletron) are experiencing earnings shortfall. In the previous quarter, the company reported an earnings shortfall due to problems with its MAX TNT remote access concentrator product. However, given the upbeat presentation by Mr. Ejabat at the DMG conference, Ascend may finally be ready to turn the corner, despite the problems currently affecting Asia.

To: joshi who wrote (26119)	12/5/1997 9:11:00 AM
From: mark alan rosenberg	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 61433

If this buy-out really takes place, I can't see anything less than $45/ share. There will be a lot of shareholder resistance to anything less. Remember, it's got to be voted on, and the potential acquirer does not want to shake the tree, and bring in dissident shareholders. Everybody has to be somewhat compromised and be convinced that the deal is good for them. Also, maybe the stock is going up on its own merits, anyway. Holding to the estimates yesterday- $1.43 for '98, sounds good to me. A buy-out right now, for an acquirer, would be propitious for the acquirer, since building fundamentals for Ascend over the next 6-9 mos. will only make the buy-out price go higher.