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Technology Stocks : VALENCE TECHNOLOGY (VLNC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: diablo who wrote (1611)	12/9/1997 1:04:00 AM
From: Gordon Quickstad	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 27311

From the 1/31/97 Proxy Statement: Mr. Berg helped found the Company and has served on the Board of Directors since September 1991. For more than the past five years, Mr. Berg has been a major Silicon Valley industrial real estate developer and a private venture capital investor. Mr. Berg also serves as a director of Integrated Device Technology, Inc., Videonics, Inc. and Systems Integrated Research. I'm still puzzled by the turn of events. As I said before, if the company is on the verge of making lots of wonderful batteries, then strong cash flow is also just around the corner. With lots of cash and great hopes, the company could attract a stellar CEO. This is not to detract from Lev. His contribution was to co-found the company, help get the three stock offerings going between 5/92 and 12/93, which raised 150 million bucks, no small achievement. However, that was all done in a climate of less competition with a lithium metal polymer battery with higher energy and that had to be abandoned for safety reasons after Lev left the company. The batteries were expected to be in production over four years ago. There were contracts with HP and Motorola, MOT's being for $100 million worth of batteries, that had to be abandoned. All this was on Lev's watch. How does he approach customers today with all this old baggage? A new, dynamic CEO who brings an impeccable resume is who I would have expected to replace Cal. And why didn't Cal contribute to the Valence press release? He should have given his glowing expectations for the company's success instead of the company just making a few comments about thanking him, him being able to spend time with family and boat, and his seeing the company through the litigation. I hate to say it but I smell something sour here. How about it?

To: diablo who wrote (1611)	12/9/1997 7:04:00 PM
From: I. N. Vester	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 27311

Carl Berg is apparently a Silicon Valley real estate guy cum venture capitalist. He is rumoured to be a very savy investor and not a real nice guy. He also is heavily into IDTI, a growth semi co i have invested in, which is also down now but has high expectations for 98. If I could eat expectations i have enuff now to never go hungry! I checked the VLNC yearly report and carl has something like 4M shares. Isn't the following scenerio fairly easy to imagine: Berg is pissed off and cans Cal Reed. Why? Well if there is a manufacturing problem, seems like this would be stupid (unless Cal wanted to go public with it and Berg did not but that does seem a trifle paraniod). It does seem more possible that Cal is good on the manufacturing side, and maybe would be a great manufacturing VP, but maybe is having trouble dealing with the OEMs lining up the best deal for whatever reason. Remember, there were some remarks in the next to last cc about 'focusing on market acceptance' which we had a bit of trouble understanding. So he and Berg have a fight, or Berg just decides he isn't hacking it and boots him. The story about 'unhappy about the timing of Cal's share sale' sounds like bs you might use as an excuse. There's gotta be more than that to it. But if Cal really is a manufacturing guru (i don't have a clue, that just the sense i've picked up) then it really would be counter productive to axe him if you faced manufacturing problems. And whatever else is true, you can be sure Berg did not become a multi-millionare by being stupid. Anybody know more about Cal and about Lev? Am I jumping to conclusions that Cal must be the manufacturing guru who's usefullness may have timed out, or who maybe can't hack the other duties of CEO vs Lev who maybe is the right man to be in charge of tough dealmaking with the OEMs? All conjecture, but you kinda gotta wonder what the rationale is if Cal didn't just say 'I'd rather be boating'. And if some scenerio like the above is true, what can the company say 'Carl Berg is a cut-throat bastard who wanted this guy out because he can't do deals'?