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

To: Keliven Wong who wrote (22)	5/28/1998 11:25:00 AM
From: Tokyo VD	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 79

Keliven, I'm going to try to respond as best I can. First, you can go out and research the case yourself and decide on the merits of the case. The On Command patent nos. are 4,947,244, reissued as Re 34,611, and 4,829,560. As far as counsel resigning, this is news to me. The trial is still on target for August (the summary judgement meeting occurred with the judge last week). My statement that LNET is out of cash is fact. The company burns ~$20 million a quarter. Look at the balance sheet. The sequential cash position from Q3 to Q1 was: $20,070,000/1,020,000/840,000. At the same time, LT Debt went from: $179,460,000/182,691,000/205,224,000. Take a look at the increase in accrued expenses. The bank line was increased to $300 million, but a negative outcome in the court case will quickly exhaust the remaining. As for your question about the capital markets, sure LNET could try to do a convert offering (why do you think MS picked up coverage???). The convert market is flush with cash and not too discriminate, but the weight of servicing the existing debt and a convert would probably crush the company. IMHO, this isn't company can't be valued like a cable company who enjoys geographic monopolies. Lastly, you erroneously suggest that I'm here to defend On Command and bury LodgeNet. This is fallacious and misleading. The fact may just be that this may just be a crummy business. I hope this indulges your appetite for information. Why don't you do me the favor and explain why you would want to keep this sinking ship afloat (and don't worry about being too technical, I think I can handle it). Tokyo