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Technology Stocks : WAVX Anyone? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Norman Klein who wrote (5759)	3/2/1999 3:02:00 PM
From: Trooper	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11417

Hard to break that $12 price. Once we do however, I believe we go much higher!

To: Norman Klein who wrote (5759)	3/2/1999 3:02:00 PM
From: E*Trader	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 11417

How did you get the $25 share price? that would be a great deal!

To: Norman Klein who wrote (5759)	3/2/1999 4:21:00 PM
From: andrew peterson	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 11417

How does WAVX withstand an HP buyout offer? Simple, really, they just vote against it. Insiders holding Class B shares (with 5 votes to a share) will make it difficult to do it without the company's supporting the deal. The Spragues have talked about this in one of the interviews they did -- I believe it was the TWST interview. (I'll try to dig up the relevant excerpt so that we can look at it.) Now I take it that what you're suggesting is that HP is now or will in the future strong-arm WAVX to sell the company in exchange for financing. They might try. But if the Spragues aren't interested, I believe that they'd probably be hurting their own company by forcing the issue. Right now anything we say on that subject is pretty much speculation, but in my gut I just don't see it happening. It's true that WAVX's finances suck, but it's also true that they've acknowledged that they have many sources of possible financing. In other words, they could say no to HWP. Of course that might mean Reg D financing, which would not be good for shareholders -- but I'd probably even take that over a buy-out right now. Another question is whether or not HWP would actually WANT to buy WAVX. There has been in the past quite a bit of talk about the possibility of IBM buying out WAVX but IBM seemed to suggest that it was more in their interest to have WAVX functioning as an independent entity. One other point is that the dependency is not a one-way street here -- HP also needs WAVX. We have the patents and the devices that anyone who traffics in digital commerce needs. We can say no if we want to and in some ways it's not in anyone's interest to alienate us. I think (I hope) that our intellectual property gives us more clout than you're allowing. But who knows. You could be right. But I certainly hope not. Wavx in a few years will be worth a whole lot more than the buy-out price in the next few months.

To: Norman Klein who wrote (5759)	3/2/1999 4:33:00 PM
From: andrew peterson	Respond to of 11417

Here's the quote, from the TWST interview (any typos are mine): TWST: The general trend we've seen in this industry is that small guys with great ideas tend to get gobbled up. Is that likely to happen to you? Mr. Sprague: Not likely. We have class B common stock out there with five times the voting rights than the class A common stock. That doesn't mean someone couldn't acquire us, but it does mean that they couldn't do it overnight. TWST: Would it have to be a friendly deal? Mr. Sprague: It would have to be a friendly deal. We both know that if somebody offers us an outrageous percentage over the market and we turn it down, we are liable to our shareholders. We have an obligation to our shareholders, but our capital structure keeps an unfriendly offering from happening easily. And if we turn out to be correct, we're playing in a very large arena. Right now we have a very small market valuation.