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Technology Stocks : Creative Labs (CREAF) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Fred Fahmy who wrote (12683)	11/8/1998 7:52:00 PM
From: Brian Lempel	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13925

Well Fred, my initial reaction was the same as yours, but I guess this does make some sense. Your point about declaring it now must be correct...there must be laws against buying shares and then issuing news to boost the price (although the brokerage industry does this all the time!). If this is true, it probably means that the buyback will begin tomorrow. Think about news boost plus buyback boost on tomorrow! We could see 20 (no kidding!). Well my dad on my advise has 1000 shares at a basis of 16, so that would be pretty nice! I also don't advocate stocks with dividends. To me, like you have mentioned, the money is almost always better spent in other ways (buyback, in most cases). But CREAF is a unique case. The singapore laws (how do you like that tax exemption one!) make it difficult for share buyback to be carried out to the extent that CREAF wishes to do so (at least this is the message I get). The dividend seems to confirm this theory. 10% buyback at $20 + .50 dividend, only depletes about half of CREAF's cash position (based on my rough calculations). And they're a cash cow, let's face it. Most importantly, I take the announcement to mean hands down their intention to purchase no less than 9.3 million shares before the AGM, and 9.3 after it. And just as importantly, if analysts find this out (which the company should (should being the operative word) confirm), we are off to the races. "It's a good day to be a CREAFster" Brian

To: Fred Fahmy who wrote (12683)	11/8/1998 8:53:00 PM
From: Curbstone	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 13925

Fred, This is interesting. Your references to, "waste of money" and "throwing away money." Man, the way I look at it, that big pile of cash is MY money. I am an owner of this company and the company is giving me back a portion of my hard-earned profit in cash. This works for me. They are saying, in essence, "You, the owner of this company, know better what to do with your own money than we, your hired managers do." Creative is wisely managing more than technology now, they are managing shareholder perceptions, values and expectations. This is an extremely positive announcement. It not only sends a very positive message to current shareholders, it kicks up the price a little, attracts new income-concious investors and their money managers, and gets us great publicity for something other than sound and video cards, something the "average" investor knows little or nothing about. As a side note you can use your dividend however you want, if you disapprove, use it to buy stock in Aureal, if you approve, use it to reinvest in Creative. I don't think this is a stupid move at all. But what the hell do I know. Mike