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Technology Stocks : VALENCE TECHNOLOGY (VLNC) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Larry Brubaker who wrote (8897)	3/4/1999 11:26:00 AM
From: Rich Wolf	Read Replies (5) \| Respond to of 27311

Off topic: Larry, sounds more like it was a boardroom struggle at Iwerks. Mr. Wright would not have proposed the merger if he didn't think it was a good business plan. Judging from the stock price reaction when he first came aboard, and one of the board member's comments at his departure that he brought more fiscal responsibility to the company in terms of cash flow, even the street approved of the direction he was leading them during his first year. So what turned with the business? Why did he seek the merger, towards the end of his tenure? The marketplace changes, maybe he saw them needing to change as well (I refer you to HQ's and lws's comments here). But such mergers dilute the power and authority of the larger shareholders, and he may have been fighting an uphill battle, which he clearly lost. You incorrectly make an assumption that his plan was the wrong one, and the 'shareholders' (read: majority shareholder(s), not necessarily a large number of little shareholders! we know how that game is played) were wiser to reject him. Well, look where they ended up: down to $1 per share now (though possibly undervalued, depending upon accounting). Looks like the 'street' didn't like their chosen path. And we'll never know whether Mr. Wright's plan would have worked out better. Truth is, neither you nor I know the real story of Iwerks. I suggest you give it a rest, and quit trying to hang the man on incomplete and possibly misleading information. You claimed that people here were hyping his hiring as if he were a turnaround mastermind. All I read here were qualified secondhand reports that he was hired there to turn things around, and it looks like he had, and as you pointed out, left when he lost a boardroom confrontation about where to go from there. Hardly 'hype.' Perhaps you have a sensitivity to anyone having a positive attitude about Valence's business plan or potential for success. You are welcome to reserve judgement for yourself until after the fact. But as often noted here, they are a 'work in progress,' and I would have thought you'd have chosen to focus instead on the first-order significance of this hire, that he would be off-loading some of Lev's responsibility. I think we can agree that's a major issue, and this hiring is a good idea. Whether Mr. Wright will prove the right man, time will tell. But when you succumb to hyperbole in your own effort to combat any positive attitude you see here, you become that which you claim to disdain. He was hired to direct operations. Let's hear what he has to say, and see what he does.