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Technology Stocks : Newbridge Networks -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Clay Takaya who wrote (9064)	1/15/1999 12:39:00 PM
From: Ian@SI	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 18016

Clay, I don't think that too many of us resist a nice, fat takeover premium. Personally, I'd resist some sluggish, slow growing, mired in the past, equipment maker growing at 10% taking away this high growth with relatively low risk opportunity. Perhaps, we just have different definitions of what we call a nice fat takeover premium. IMO, we're unlikely to get fair value short term given that NN has historically traded at about 1/2 the ratios that a CSCO or ASND did. While CSCO clearly deserves a premium, I'm not quite so sure that ASND did. And NN has already opened the doors to most major carriers globally. It's not as if it just had a great idea with no sales. It is a multi billion $ company. While I can't speak for you, to me a billion or so is still "real money". ;-) Ian

To: Clay Takaya who wrote (9064)	1/15/1999 12:39:00 PM
From: Dennis R. Duke	Respond to of 18016

If you read the ASND board last year it was similar. Many theories of whom would be the takeover candidate and many people believing the company would be much better long term by itself. My personal experience is that large corporate America has no creativity and must buy companies that have proven they have product to survive. Those with guts go and build a company to the size that it hits the big boys radar screen and then the big companies buy only what is proven to work. Often the big boys don't understand what they bought and goof it up. In my humble opinion, McGraw-Hill bought a company I worked for, did not understand the sales cycle and destroyed the company in less than 2 years. McG-H wrote off $12.5 million for the error (approximatlely 2x sales was the purchase price). BEAN did an IPO to buy Gloria Jean's and Hillside. I was Hillside's CFO. They executed a very poor branding strategy on the gourmet retail grocery side and took an IPOed price of $21 down to bankruptcy very recently (Yes, it hurts to see companies you helped build destroyed by others errors.). They also did not succeed with the Gloria Jean's business and sold it to Second Cup for a loss (a big one in my opinion) about two years ago. But having said that I could point to many examples within large corporate America where the acquisitions are what has allowed these companies to continue today, despite some of their errors with other acquisitions. What allows these corporations to succeed is by buying companies that have proven technology and expected or proven profitability, like NN and ASND. Everything is for sale at the right price...IMHO. Later, (-8 Dennis 8-)