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Technology Stocks : Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: H James Morris who wrote (3899)	5/4/1998 10:06:00 AM
From: Oeconomicus	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 164684

Winter it appears that your not up-to-date. Last Mon, Amzn announced the acquisitions of 3 internet Co's, paid mostly with stock. They plan a secondary offering, after they sell their junk bonds. Jim, I don't think the total consideration for these acquisitions has been disclosed, so we don't know that the total was "mostly stock". Furthermore, at least one of the three was totally cash. As for a secondary, the view of WS seems to be that the note issue is in lieu of a secondary. Analysts were quoted in the WSJ saying that management doesn't want to part with any of it's ownership - that is, they don't want to be diluted. More likely, they concluded that a secondary would bring the stock down while a successful junk issue wouldn't, especially since they won't have to disclose the terms probably until their Q2 10-q comes out in August. Funny that the spin implies they are issuing debt because they think the stock is undervalued. My read is that they know a secondary would prove it is overvalued and think the debt issue will buy them more time (to figure out how to turn a profit, for the bubble to grow, or for them to sell more of their own stock - you pick). Bob

To: H James Morris who wrote (3899)	5/4/1998 10:17:00 AM
From: Glenn D. Rudolph	Respond to of 164684

Bertelsmannconfident on Random House deal Reuters Story - May 04, 1998 08:15 %DE %PUB %US %MRG BTGGg.F V%REUTER P%RTR Bertelsmann, which already owns Bantam Doubleday Dell, announced in March it planned to buy Random House Inc., the largest book publisher in the United States. Industry experts estimated the value of Random House at $1.3 billion. But the takeover aroused opposition from groups representing U.S. authors and literary agents, who filed a formal objection with the FTC. Bertelsmann said it had last week resubmitted documentation on the takeover to the FTC, in consultation and cooperation with the U.S. regulator, to clarify competitive implications. The company said this had been a normal step designed to avoid the need for a lengthy investigation.