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Technology Stocks : AT&T -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jabbo who wrote (1558)	7/7/1998 3:46:00 AM
From: burgerking	Respond to of 4298

letter to ATT IR department ... Hi all! I thought I'd share a letter I sent to the ATT IR department (attir@att.com). I don't think this letter will have much effect, but it sure felt good writing it! --------------------- Dear Sir: As a shareholder in ATT, I plan to vote against the proposed merger with TCI. This proposed merger has done nothing but reduced the stock's value by 15%. The company's worth has been reduced (as measured by market capitalization) from $105.95 billion (1.63 billion shares X $65/share) to $90.06 billion. In addition, the deal gives away ATT stock to all the various holders of TCI stocks which will cost another $32 billion, and assumes $16 billion in TCI debt; all of this further dilutes shareholder value. For all of this, ATT gets a debt ridden cable company using poor technology. What does ATT get? The possibility to get voice, cable, and internet into one line sounds very promising. While this possibility sounds great, the technology is unproven, has not made much money (if any) for anyone, and will take a lot of capital expenditures in hardware upgrades. Moving all of this information over cable wires may not even be the best or dominant hardware configuration in next few years. Many other companies are starting to deliver similar services using ADSL and existing phone lines. I believe the chairman of ATT, C. Michael Armstrong, has taken a big bet on this unproven technology. He has given me little reason to trust him to know that this bet is correct. He can't even get his figures straight when he overstated the cost of the deal at $68 billion (analysts put the cost of the deal at $48 billion or so). How can we trust him when he makes a lousy deal, bets the company on unproven technology, and overstates the cost of the deal by $20 billion. TWENTY BILLION DOLLARS is a lot of money! I personally know many better ways to spend the $60 billion this fiasco has cost ATT (so far!). The mission statement of ATT begins with "We aspire to be the most admired and valuable company in the world... " This deal certainly gets ATT further away from this goal. After voting against this deal, I will promptly dump my shares of ATT since I'm sure I know how to spend my money better than Mr. Armstrong. I hope the board of directors shares my mistrust in Mr. Armstrong and takes appropriate action. Respectfully yours