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Technology Stocks : WCOM -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mazman who wrote (2266)	3/16/1998 4:29:00 PM
From: William Cooper	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11568

Monday March 16, 3:43 pm Eastern Time Telecom shrs up on positive WorldCom report NEW YORK, March 16 (Reuters) - Shares of telecommunications companies rose Monday after an influential Wall Street analyst rated WorldCom Inc (WCOM - news) a strong buy and said its shares would touch $60 in the next 12 months. WorldCom shares gained 2-8/16 to 41-13/16 on the report by Salomon Smith Barney analyst Jack Grubman. Until recently, Grubman had been restricted from commenting on WorldCom's stock because his firm acted as financial advisor to WorldCom in its $37 billion bid late last year to buy MCI Communications Corp (MCIC - news). WorldCom's rise encouraged investors to bid up shares of other telecommunication companies, including Bell Atlantic Corp (BEL - news), AT&T Corp (T - news), Sprint Corp (FON - news) and MCI Communications Corp (MCIC - news). In late-afternoon trading, Bell Atlantic rose 2-5/16 to 98-5/8, AT&T rose 11/16 to 65-3/8, Sprint was up one at 69-3/4 and MCI rose 1-1/2 to 48-1/16. Grubman said in his report WorldCom represents the only legitimate large-capitalization growth stock in the entire telecommunications universe. He said the combined WorldCom-MCI entity would have top-line growth of 17 percent a year over five years and five-year earnings-per-share growth of 32 percent. Grubman predicted the stock would rise to $60 a share in the next 12 months and $90 a share in the next 24 months. WorldCom's upside move may mean the company would have to issue fewer shares for the MCI deal -- meaning less earnings dilution. The number of WorldCom shares to be exchanged for each MCI share would be set by dividing $51 by the 20-day average of the high and low sale prices for WorldCom common stock prior to the deal's closing. The number would not be less than 1.2439 shares, if WorldCom's average stock price exceeded $41, or more than 1.7586 shares, if WorldCom's average stock price were less than $29.