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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clean who wrote (13706)	8/13/1998 8:59:00 PM
From: JMD	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 152472

Clean, no desire to put words in anyone's mouth as it seems quite apparent that a lot of folks on this thread can express themselves more than adequately. But I doubt anyone would assert that the hostile takeover discussion is anything but an educated guess, or reasoning from the evidence at hand that this is what MIGHT be going on, whichever you prefer. Is the evidence circumstantial? Definitely. If I was running the Ericy show however [and had just had my hat handed to me on several fronts], I would either a) license the Q's IPR's at the last possible minute for the least possible price or b) buy them, particularly if I thought the net present value of the royalties I'd ultimately pay would be greater than the purchase price. There's nothing wrong with a 'bear raid' at least in one sense. Most of us are long the Q and we talk it up. If we were short we'd talk it down. But the line gets crossed at the point rumors, known to be false, are planted hither and yon, with a subsequent buyout after a price decline. Wall Street Analysts are paid to sort through the more blatant of these rumors and to disseminate information that is accurate to the best of their knowledge. Of course they can, and do, blow it and become victims of the rumor mongers. The Q's recent declines on significant volume amid a swirl of such rumors several of them just plain goofy makes me suspicious. These are not credible rumors and should be easily seen as such by guys who make beaucoup de 6 figures. As to why Ericy is the prime villain--that's easy. Unlike Northern Telecom and Lucent [who will happily sell a carrier a system of any stripe, gsm,cdma, you name it] Ericy is running a very risky bet: you can have GSM or wait till we develop WCDMA 'free' of QCOM IPR's but you can't have IS95 today. That strategy is looking like a bet the company play and increasingly like a losing one. Their stock has been hammered and their customers must be wondering what's up. The law suit is just around the corner. LU and NT are deriving significant revenues from CDMA. Their China stronghold is a little pekid just now--sounds like call or raise time to me. Maurice--I'm no M&A pro, or even amateur, but it goes something like this. As has been pointed out, the hostile acquirer only needs 51% so if that many sellers think $80/sh is groovy, it's game set and match. You wouldn't want to be a minority shareholder and anyway I think the 51% holder could just let you dangle or send you a check and say cash it or not but you're out of here. So you couldn't just unilaterally hold out--M&A mavens jump in and provide details. Mike Doyle

To: Clean who wrote (13706)	8/13/1998 9:08:00 PM
From: Sawtooth	Respond to of 152472

<<Just for clarification, the argument has been made that the price is intentionally being driven down, so that "someone" could make a hostile takeover attempt? From where did this come about and where did ericy come into the picture (besides the known confrontation)? Or is this an educated guess?>> It was postulated in posts towards the beginning of the day that this was likely, or else coincidently, the result of Qcom's decision re:the ETSI meeting. This may be the case but, until now, it has been basically conjecture, unless I've missed something. I, for one, don't find a 2.75% slump in a high beta stock to be all that unusual in the current market. Maybe more information will emerge. On the surface it does seem that a takeover would be the simplest, quickest approach for Qcom's "foes". I'm still not clear on how analysts (intentionaly) participate to aid a hostile takeover before the fact, as seems to have been suggested. Then, again, I'm not familiar with everything that goes on behind the scenes (understatement). I just invest in great companies for the long term; that seems to have been enough to make a good profit so far. Best to all. ...Tim (in Q for 2003)