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To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (35478)	6/19/1998 8:50:00 PM
From: Knighty Tin	Respond to of 53903

Skeets, Where did all the money go from so many quarters of gangbusters profits? Several answers: 1. Most of it was not real to begin with. There has never been any FREE cash flow of significance in this business. Every penny supposedly earned has to be spent keeping up with the technology and expanding capacity to run in place. That's why the cash disappears so fast when there is a downturn. The simple fact is, if the depreciation and amotorzation numbers were right, and it is the govt's fault they aren't, not MU's, those eps would never have been anything to write home about. 2. A lot was spent on Microstamp with no return. 3. A lot was spent on Lehi with no return. 4. Burst Edo sucked up a lot of cash and gave nothing back. 5. The lawyers demand high fees when they have to whine about entire countries in public. 6. Huge amounts were spent stopping the bleeding at Zeos and MUEI, despite nominally positive eps reports, has never really made any money or thrown off any free cash flow. 7. They had that huge dividend for awhile. -vbg- O.K., all that being said, this company has also borrowed from banks, issued a convertible bond to easy marks from the sticks, and sold off part of MUEI. So it is just not the cash they didn't make that has disappeared, it is also the cash they have received from other sources. They also had a nice tax writeoff this quarter. In simple words, this is one mutha of a cash-eating business, even when accounting fiction allows them to pretend that they have profits. Poor mgt. has made it worse at MU, but it would have been pretty awful even if I'd been running the joint. -g- MB

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (35478)	6/19/1998 9:27:00 PM
From: mike iles	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 53903

Skeeter, I still believe MU is grossly overvalued at current levels ... but I'm impressed with this TI deal. I think (Larry, this is an opinion) it gets them out of a life-threatening jam. And I still think their secret pre-release to favoured analysts is slimey. But when you stand back and look at the fact that they're the only (as fer as I know) independent company 100% devoted to the memory market (I agree ... right now this is not something to brag about) and they compete mainly with big conglomerates who are heavily subsidized by their governments ... and you consider that they're still alive and it looks like they will survive what has got to be one of the worst cycles of all time ... well my conclusion (and I've been tracking this dog closely) is that at the right price (say a $1 billion market cap for the memory business) and at the right time this could be a helluva investment ... Appleton is just incredibly tenacious .... I realize this may get me cast out of the brotherhood of forever bears and so I voice these comments cautiously (g) ... still got my puts and still looking for single digits .... regards, Mike