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Technology Stocks : PRGY-Prodigy Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Not-U-Sir who wrote (92)	2/16/1999 8:34:00 PM
From: Teri Garner	Respond to of 419

Nice article on PRGY - looks like there is a turnaround specialist at the helm of Prodigy. Already we are seeing a blitz of TV ads, etc. Mexico's Carlos Slim Does it Again as Prodigy Bet Wins Big Mexico City, Feb. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Carlos Slim has shown once again why he is Mexico's wealthiest businessman, using an investment in a moribund company to ride Wall Street's Internet craze to a billion-dollar profit. Slim, who topped Forbes' list of Latin American billionaires this year, bought Prodigy Communications Corp. three years ago when the on-line company was seen as a languishing company. On Thursday, Prodigy was the latest Internet company to charm Wall Street with an initial public offering. After two days of trading, Slim's $300 million investment in Prodigy has more than quadrupled to $1.4 billion. ''I don't think there is anyone like him in Mexico,'' said Edgar Amador, an economist at Stone & McCarthy Research Associates. ''He has touched Prodigy and has made it into gold.'' Prodigy, which sold 8 million shares in the IPO, was the most active share on U.S. markets Thursday and the sixth-most active today. The price of Prodigy's shares has more than doubled to 35 7/16 from 15. Slim, Prodigy's majority shareholder through his companies Carso Global Telecom SA and Telefonos de Mexico SA, is not just benefiting from the craze for Internet-related stocks. His name also makes Prodigy an attractive investment. ''That's the beauty, when you buy him you buy management,'' said Alberto Montagne, an analyst at Lehman Brothers who used to follow Slim's industrial company, Grupo Carso SA. ''They have great ideas.'' King Midas In Mexico, Slim is nicknamed King Midas for his ability to find troubled companies and turn their fortunes around. People are betting he will do it again with Prodigy, because the Internet service provider makes a perfect match to his telephone companies, including Telmex. Telmex, Mexico's largest telephone company, and Prodigy are already studying the possibility of offering a combined Internet service in Mexico to complement Prodigy's business strategy of tapping the U.S. Hispanic market to expand its subscriber base. Telmex is the largest Internet service provider in Mexico with about 110,000 subscribers, while Prodigy, based in White Plains, New York, has 671,000 subscribers. Slim began acquiring stakes in the company in mid-1996, when the company fell behind competitors such as America Online Inc. as Internet use exploded in the 1990s. He now holds 69.2 percent of shares. Domestic Success Prodigy offers Slim the chance to show whether he can be as successful abroad as he is in Mexico, where his almost impeccable record has enabled him to build a family fortune estimated to be worth $7.2 billion. People close to Slim say his winning formula isn't complicated: cut costs and boost productivity. He bought department store company Sears Roebuck de Mexico SA in April, 1997 for $103 million when sales fell 13 percent from the year before. In less than a year, Slim turned the company around. Its revenue increased 35 percent in 1997. ''Sears was a losing enterprise for as long as I can remember, and they turned it around in two quarters,'' said Montagne. quote.bloomberg.com