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Technology Stocks : Ampex Corporation (AEXCA) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: valuehunter who wrote (6196)	3/12/1999 7:52:00 AM
From: jerryriti	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 17679

and here it is: Q: Roxymott thinks Ampex (AMEX: AXC) is making moves to establish itself in the video storage and web hosting business and wants my take on the company's prospects. A: Ampex has been around a long time, and at one point it was considered one of the Fortune 1000 firms in the U.S. Today it's more like a fortune cookie, a shell on the outside with some worthless paper on the inside. Ampex was founded in 1944 by a Russian electrical engineer as a small motor manufacturer and in 1948 it began marketing an audio recorder, which later became the earliest VCR technology. Since the early 1950's Ampex has amassed 900 patents, has won 11 Emmy awards and one Oscar for its technical prowess. In the 1980s, however, things started to fall apart. Patents began to expire and competition in the electronics business got fierce. Ampex did not have the world by the horns any more. Profits disappeared and the so did the stock price. After several years of obscurity, Ampex was bought by the Sherborne Group, owned by Edward Bramson, in 1987. Bramson took it public in 1992 and took a $230.5 million restructuring charge in 1993. Over the last six years, Bramson has continued to sell off its money-losing businesses, in order to focus on data storage. In 1998 Ampex acquired MicroNet Technology, a data storage and image processing company, and in 1999 it bought a 20% stake in Alternative Entertainment, whose products enable video streaming over the Internet. But I am not impressed. Ampex has $95 million in long-term debt and other liabilities. It has two classes of preferred stock. It has a shareholders' deficit, as of December 1998, of $71 million. In short, the balance sheet is a mess. I have been following Ampex since the early 90s when management promised a turnaround. It hasn't happened yet and I am sick of waiting. © 1998 Periscope Analytics, Inc.