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Strategies & Market Trends : Buffettology -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: James Clarke who wrote (689)	12/14/1998 11:37:00 PM
From: Shane M	Respond to of 4691

Jim, Here's a lead if you're wanting to track down people that like TLC. This was posted on the ORCL thread a few days ago. The poster - treetopflier - seems to understand the software space pretty well from my experience. He's been calling the recovery in ORCL for a long time before I owned the stock. Message 6807807 Shane

To: James Clarke who wrote (689)	12/16/1998 12:23:00 AM
From: Jurgis Bekepuris	Respond to of 4691

Here's my e-mail exchange with a friend regarding Herb Greenberg's comments on MAT (https://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=6839818) BTW, another interesting tidbit: (https://www.siliconinvestor.com/readmsg.aspx?msgid=6851617) > I think I can agree with much of what Herb said. > Herb thinks that Barbie is over-exposed. I can believe > this. OK, but it's still a tremendous franchise. > Also I agree that if TOY is doing poorly then MAT will do > poorly. I dont know much about TLC. But it is possible the > management was selling out of a sinking ship. Maybe you can > look into the financials on TLC to check on this. You can't. Apparently TLC itself did 1.9 bln of acquisitions (from Herb?) including BROD. So the financials are hopelessly obscured. The company never turned in profit. I would think that the story is not shiny - most of their software titles are sold in the discounted Costco bins for free after rebates! Of course, TLC shareholders are unhappy, but I think that their management is more savvy. TLC could have only continued its trip using acquisitions for inflated stock. On the other hand, the company has a strong list of educational titles - some inherited from BROD. The computer game business is hit driven, which is a drawback - MAT has more stable classical toys franchise. What do they get from TLC? Much larger computer exposure, and possibility to interlock their copyrighted characters with educational titles - a big plus. E.g. the titles may be made more attractive by bundling Barbie, etc. with math software or something. However, this is a longer term plus, and will depend on execution. Finally on MAT. You've followed them for longer that I did. From what I understand they have a pretty new CEO, president of Fisher-Price and COO. Do you know why they changed these officers? As I said, the board does not look shareholder friendly. Do you have any feeling what is the direction of the company? They did a funny attempt to buy HAS some time ago. Who was the idiot who thought that they can get regulatory approval on the merger? > I am somewhat worried about a deal in which > the acquiring company's stock goes > down on the news. This reminds me of Quaker buying Snapple > at a price below its current price. That was a bad deal. The merger may be called off. What would you do then? My target price ($15-$18) won't be reached unless the market panics - MAT is too well known as a franchise to attract value-Buffetty investors from Oakmark, Clipper, Third Avenue and elsewhere. Jurgis