for the benefit of the board, here's the transcript of the CNBC interview with birck. my apologies if it's already been posted; i haven't exactly slogged through each of the last 100 post-earnings posts.
for those who prefer multimedia, you can catch the aud & vid here too:
mktnews.nasdaq.com\\www\nasdaq\news\msnbc\1999\1\26\NASDAQ_0940_17951.htm&usymbol=TLAB&logo=True&companyname=Tellabs%2C+Inc%2E
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CNBC - SQUAWK BOX
TELLABS CEO MICHAEL BIRCK
JANUARY 26, 1999
Tellabs (TLAB) CEO Michael Birck comments on Cablescan, the company's telecom service to cable companies
SUMMARY: Tellabs is expanding its product line in 1999. Birck says the company is still looking to boost its Internet provision services and remains on the hunt for partners after its failed merger with Ciena. Birck refuses comment on acquisitions.
Mark: Joining us now from Chicago to tell us more is Michael Birck, CEO at Tellabs, this does not happen often at all, I can remember the last time it happened but I will disclose that members of my family own stock in tells.
So I have a financial interest here. Mr. Birck, thank you very much for joining us, appreciate it.
You're welcome, good morning.
Mark: Great numbers! Couldn't resist. Couldn't resist that.
The stock has been kind of crazy, Mr. Birck. You know, you were late for a meeting and it went up six points.
Went up 13.
Mark: Is the market, you know, it's great the stock is up but is the market a little nuts here?
The market is a lot nuts, I think, yes.
Mark: Business meantime, titan, digital cross secretary system, 60% of sales. Are there any plans to broaden things out and not be so dependant on this in the future?
Absolutely, this year we'll introduce a fair number of new products, some of which are associated with Titan. Part of the overall broadband network that titan is the heart of. But they are different. There are some products in the optical networking area, some products in the ad drop multiplexer area, a whole array of things that will get us a little more to the access side of the business. It will be a product year.
Mark: What was the Ciena deal all about then? When it fell through, everyone said my goodness, they're not going to be able to take advantage of the technology they would have gotten with Ciena now you seem to be doing so well. What was that all about?
Timing, it was time to market the acquisition of Ciena, we could have been a force we thought in the optical networking world sooner than we'll get there, a year sooner or so, in this business a year is a long time.
Mark: Ned Riley
Ned Riley: I wonder considering in the past that you thought about joining companies, would there be any possibility of looking at some others? Where do you think you have the voids and possible acquisition candidates out there not necessarily names but areas you would like to get into?
Well, it's hard to avoid the data area, and Internet protocol and routers, an area were not as formidable in and that's a technology we need to have as part of our arsenal.
Mark: You have traditional any operated in niches, identify an area where you felt it was underserved, move in aggressively and served you well with the consolidation going on, lucent Ascend, Nortel buying bay last year, are they filling in their own gaps and therefore coming at you?
Well, they're filling in their gaps. I wouldn't say they're coming at us. We have some things to do in some of those areas to expand our horizons a bit, I think we can do those. And in addition, some of the things that we're doing, particularly as we get boo some of the switching technology, will put us in the, on the track with them.
Mark: All right. David Faber wants in.
David Faber: Yes. Mike, with regard to earnings growth this year over last or I should say last year over the year before, we're talking about 47% revenue growth, quarterly important the last quarter year over year, some big numbers, I guess my question is, what kind of growth rates can you maintain in 1999?
Well, what we down our planning, the way we budget things is to shoot for 30% growth top line and bottom line. If we can maintain the discipline internally to make 30% appear in the bottom line, if we get 30% to top, we figure we have done our work pretty well. So that's the year, that's what we've done for this year, 30% growth in the top line will put us over that 2 billion threshold that we identified as our target for the year 2000 a year earlier.
Mark: Maybe we can save us some phone calls here. You're not talking to anybody about an acquisition, are you?
Well, I wouldn't think we ought to speculate on what we're doing in the acquisition business at this point.
Mark: You know your stock, moves up and down sometimes on all of these different rumors. Can you give us any sense as to whether you feel you need to make an acquisition or might be the target of an acquisition yourself?
Well, to answer the second one first I'm not aware of anything that would put us in the sites of anyone else.
-- sights of anyone else and that's not our initial, obviously. As to the other direction, there are opportunities and there are some growth things that we ought to be thinking about, and some technologies that perhaps we could do better with by, at least more speedily, by going outside rather than try to develop them in-house.
Mark: Let me ask you about another product line, I asked you this every time we talk and I'm ask it again, cable span. Products you developed, -- span, you've marketed it, it looks like sales are finally going somewhere, they were up 58% as I read this in the first nine months of '98, I don't know what the final figure was. But are you disappointed that this, you know, that the cable companies don't seem to be very aggressive about moving into the Telco space and that's what your product is aimed at?
That's where the product is aimed and I would say we're a little disappointed in the way the market developed.
Seems to have developed more rapidly in Europe than it has in the U.S. That's likely to change. You know. The AT&T -TCI --.
Mark: I was going to ask whether that would have an impact on the strategy.
And I think that's the intent of AT&T, to get access to end users, customers directly via TCI facilities.
And cable span is one of two, three competitors in this area. We obviously would be hopeful to get some business there.
Mark: Mr. Birck, thank you very much, we have to leave it, there Michael Birck, CEO of Tellabs, quick commercial break, then nights of the -- knights of the round table and we'll be right back. |
