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Technology Stocks : SAP A.G. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ibexx who wrote (418)	2/5/1998 7:11:00 PM
From: 007	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 3424

Well, I am going to try something. I believe SAPHY is an excellent company. I also believe that PSFT is an excellent company. I don't own PSFT, but I am thinking of buying an equal dollar amount of what my SAPHY is worth. Then I would like to see how I do on my two returns at the end of the year. Right now PSFT only needs to go up $1 for every $3 with SAPHY. Not that that is not possible, but I am going to try this. I know both companies are very good and I know that I really can't get hurt too bad as far as risk go (any more than any stock). Anyone want to venture a guess how the year end will look? I wouldn't be surprised to see year end results to be very close. M. Solum PS. When did SI get spell check?

To: Ibexx who wrote (418)	2/5/1998 8:19:00 PM
From: Ibexx	Respond to of 3424

thread, ______ Thursday February 5, 7:32 pm Eastern Time SAP shares slump on Hopp retirement plan By Neal Boudette FRANKFURT, Feb 5 (Reuters) - Shares in German software group SAP AG (SAPG.F) slumped late on Thursday following a surprise announcement that Co-Chief Executive Dietmar Hopp and another founder planned to resign in May. SAP common shares fell almost six percent within minutes of the announcement, closing electronic trading at 616.50 marks, down 13.50. Analysts said the shares would probably continue to fall on Friday, but then expected them to recover as the initial shock of the departures wears off. ''There's a panic reaction right now, but I don't see any indications of bad news here,'' said BHF Bank's (BHFG.F) Michael Schatzschneider. ''I can imagine we will see another correction in the shares tomorrow and then they will recover.'' SAP, which last week denied reports that Hopp would step down, said he would be replaced at the annual meeting in May by Henning Kagermann, the management board member currently responsible for finance. Like Hopp, Kagermann would share the top post with Co-Chief Executive Hasso Plattner, SAP said. Hopp would seek to become chairman of the company's supervisory board, the body that approves long-term strategy in German companies. Klaus Tschira, who founded the company 26 years ago with Hopp and Plattner, would also leave the management board in May and seek a seat on the supervisory board. Hopp, who was the target of an insider trading investigation last year, said in a statement he was leaving his office to prevent a damaging change in management. ''Company crises are not infrequently caused by late or badly managed leadership change,'' Hopp said. ''We at SAP want to avoid such a danger.'' He said that making a change in leadership too soon would be less damaging than one that comes too late. SAP said Hopp's decision to resign was not linked to the insider trading investigation. ''There is no connection. That is a completely different subject,'' SAP spokesman Gerhard Rickes said. Rickes also said there was ''no concrete background'' to Hopp's explanation for the decision, and said the company expected ''no significant interruption'' to its business. "It shouldn't be noticed in the market," Rickes said. Despite the sudden change, SAP should continue on its growth course unless the management change bring a new business strategy, said Martin Dixon-Ward, who follows SAP at Robert Fleming Securities Ltd in London. ''It is important to look at who the management is, but we have no particular indication that there's a change in strategy,'' he said. In 1997, SAP, a maker of enterprise management software, reported sales rose 62 percent to 6.02 billion marks ($3.4 billion) while net profit climbed 63 percent to 924 million marks. For 1998, it forecast a 30 percent to 35 percent sales increase. Analysts said they were reassured that SAP said Hopp and Tschira intended to keep their stakes in the company. Hopp, Tschira, Plattner, their families and their foundations own about two-thirds of SAP's common shares and about five percent of its preferred shares. On the strength of its popular R/3 program, SAP has captured about 33 percent of its market and has become the world's fourth largest software developer. It has just begun rolling out version 4.0 of R/3, a critical piece in a strategy to split the sprawling program into modules that can be offered in packages tailored for specific industries, such as aerospace or retail. SAP hoped to win new customers with the industry-specific systems, while adding new R/3 based products to enter the market for sales automation and data retrieval software. ($ equals 1.791 German Marks) Ibexx