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Technology Stocks : ADFLEX SOLUTIONS ( AFLX ) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kent Sarikaya who wrote (502)	1/18/1999 8:51:00 AM
From: Robert Wuj	Respond to of 718

Kent, Don't mean to intrude, but I read the Yahoo boards and I would like to bring something up about the Everen Securities downgrade. In their downgrade they said that AFLX had competition from a company named Stell Toll. No one on the Yahoo board could find anything out about that company, so it has been since determined that they mean Sheldahl. Now my question is just how could Everen Securities do any meaningful research on Stell Toll to establish them as competition in the first place? Robert

To: Kent Sarikaya who wrote (502)	1/18/1999 10:19:00 AM
From: Douglas V. Fant	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 718

Kent, I sure did-some good discussion. AFLX people should note has two functional businesses. First it manufactures flexible circuitry. Second AFLX functions as an ECM like say SLR or JBL or FLEX in assembling flip chip components. Part of those components come from FCT is my surmise, the supplier located in the same geographic area as AFLX, and also its partner in flip chip/flex circuitry research... And of course a flip chip glued to a piece of flexible circuit board is one type of flex circuit. Sheldahl competes with AFLX in the flex circuitry side of the business. Sheldahl aslo sells its flexible ciruit board materials to other chip makers. Indeed for all we know AFLX may even use some Sheldahl laminates in its flex circuits. Sheldahl netted a recent contract with Seagate for flex circuits in Seagate's Cheetah high-end drives. Now what effect that has on AFLX is unclear since AFLX noted in its last 3d quarter report that business from SEG was down 38% as SEG takes all of its manufacturing in-house. It depends which type of drives AFLX's components support, the low end or high end Seagate drives. Note too that AFLX's new business is primarily in PC's and data communications issues- note designs wins with Dell, Samsung, Xerox, and Overland Data. The point being is that AFLX is again growing its revenue streams with or without all of the Seagate business. BTW Sheldahl does not serve any of those companies. So personally I believe that both SHEL and AFLX will do well. Both markets flex circuitry (30%+) and flip chip assembly (35%+) are growing very rapidly as electronics firms seek to shrink component size. Even if SHEL and AFLX flex products compete directly, there are lots of customers out there pushing demand. This bodes well for flex manufacturers/fip chip assemblers. And also SHEL does not compete with AFLX in the component assmebly/flip chip portion of its business. Indeed just my personal hunch, but you have to believe that SHEL, AFLX, and SFLX will become acquisition targets for cash rich big cap ECM's like SCI, FLEX, HDCO, and JBL if this growth continues- particularly at their current share prices... Safest bet of the three is probably SFLX with its large pile of cash in the bank- biggest upside if things go well will be with AFLX and SHEL though. Between the two I picked AFLX as I like their collaboration with FCT- SHEL has created some excellent new products, but two heads are better than one in the research area IMO.... Finally all three companies are very competent, so it should be fun watching them battle it out for market share, along with Parlex, and maybe Celestica or 3M too- particularly since this is a growing market Sincerely, Doug F. Sincerely, Doug F.