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Technology Stocks : Advanced Radio Telecom (ARTT) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: slurper who wrote (251)	10/29/1998 10:17:00 AM
From: Obewon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1176

To All, Harry Hirsch (CEO) spoke to a business breakfast I attended yesterday morning. I managed to extract the following info: 1) The early speculation of WCII buyng all of ARTT is bunk. Harry said that if Wall Street had read the debt covenants (he didn't mention whose - WCII or ARTT), the Street would realize that WCII can't buy the company. 2) When he came onboard, none of top management had any credible experience in telecommunications. All have been replaced including the founder of the company. The company's former lead engineer had zero radio telecom experience (and resigned the day after Harry learned of this.) 3) The founder nearly fatally torpedoed the company with his sale of almost 15% of the company to WCII. The announcement was made the morning that Harry as CEO was supposed to start his roadshow to sell a $250M high yield bond offering to support market rollout and the Lucent deal signed in January. Needless to say, insiders dumping the stock is not conducive to convincing bond investors to invest in CCC rated bonds. The Board of the company was not notified until the transaction had occurred. 4) At one point before Lucent advanced them $25M this summer, the company was down to 6 weeks of cash to pay expenses, much better now (see next bullet). 5) Beta test of the system in Seattle and Bellevue went extremely well. 20 companies participated (for free). After the trail 17 immediately signed up for the service. Another company wanted to but was prevented by their corporate communications department because the test had not been properly authorized beforehand (ie politics). Revenues are now ramping up and the Portland (or Denver - can't remember which) and Pheonix rollouts are proceeding on schedule. 6) He mentioned that when stability is achieved (soon), the company will start hiring more people to support the increasing customer base. (IMHO - It should be a sign that things are going well finally.) BTW: I don't own the stock but as I'm currently looking for an entrepreneurial company to work with, I am considering speaking with Harry about a job their. OB