Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Network Solutions (NSOL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: CMon who wrote (185)	1/5/1999 12:46:00 PM
From: Guardian	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1377

thanks. i found the news piece after i posted. what's your take on the sustainable market price/ps for nsol as one of a handful of internet cos in the black and indexed to the expansion of the internet?

To: CMon who wrote (185)	1/18/1999 10:16:00 PM
From: LittleMax	Respond to of 1377

Regarding the Secondary Offering I'd like to correct a few points in your post. 1. SAIC is selling 4.5 million shares out of about 11.9 million, or much less than 50%. 2. SAIC is selling the shares to reduce its holding of NSOL to less than 50% (about 45% to be exact). The two most important reasons for this are: 1) with SAIC's ownership at less than 50%, NSOL has more favorable accounting treatment if it uses its stock in a transaction, e.g., an acquisition, 2) institutional investors have told SAIC that the float needs to be increased for liquidity at the institutional level. 3. SAIC is more than just an informed seller. It's one of the biggest (35,000 employees) but least well-known players in the Internet / telecommunications / systems integration, etc. market. For example, SAIC's biggest operating subsidiary is BellCore. Loosely phrased, BellCore used to be the systems component of the regional Bell operating companies (RBOCs) the way Lucent used to be the hardware part of AT&T. Originally they were both part of Bell Labs. With this in mind, you might want to consider whether the informed part of SAIC's secondary offering is the sale of 4.5 million shares (near the minimum needed for accounting and liquidity reasons), or the retention of almost 7.5 million shares, or both. SAIC is not cashing out to disappear with the proceeds. 4. To the extent Internet stocks in general are valued by different standards, NSOL will obviously be part of that valuation. Note, however, that NSOL is profitable now, will be profitable for the foreseeable future, and is taking some very big steps to diversify and build upon its domain registration base. This is not the standard losses-as-far-as-the-eye-can-see Internet hype. Check out the cover story in the business section of today's Washington Post (1-18-98), for example. Don't be surprised if the domain registration business turns out to be a lot more profitable for a lot longer than most people expect -- and don't be surprised if it turns out to be the foundation for a lot of profitable business in related areas.