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Technology Stocks : VLSI Technology - Waiting for good news from NASDAQ !!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: lifeisgood who wrote (5807)	3/18/1999 9:05:00 PM
From: Linda Kaplan	Respond to of 6565

Heck, if you're long the stock (and not short???) then why don't you sell your shares at 19 now rather than whine about wanting 17 from Phillips? I don't understand your point. It's not better for the SHAREHOLDERS to take 17 over 19. I represent a shareholder not an avenging angel. Linda

To: lifeisgood who wrote (5807)	3/18/1999 10:01:00 PM
From: otter	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 6565

re. How this news helps VLSI. I'm not sure I understand your comment. The name of this game is 'high bidder wins'. If Al and the board of directors were to be playing games, you better believe there would be shareholder suits out the yingyang - and they know it. 1. They did NOT turn up their nose at the Philips offer. They said that the offer wasn't good enough. Wouldn't you have? 2. They did NOT say that they would not negotiate with Philips. Just the opposite, in fact. 3. They DID say that VLSI is in play. 4. They DID say that they have engaged in preliminary conversations with others. 5. They raised three alternatives - merger, acquisition, or recapitalization, two of those alternatives probably do away with much of the board. I take - perhaps wrongly - recapitalization as going private. If that's the case, then it would - of course - be up to the shareholders to agree that the price per share offered, is acceptable. And in ANY of these three scenarios, I won't care WHAT happens to the board or to Al, will I? re. Al Stein's quest to retain power. He, my friend, has NO power if the shareholders don't vote his way. He does NOT own 50% plus one share of the company. End of that story. re. interested bidders: There is at this time NO need for another 'interested bidder' to come forward and be public. Why? Because it's early in the game. There are two scenarios here: 1. Another hostile bidder. That other hostile bidder probably wouldn't come forward until (1) VLSI answered Philips (they did that today),(2) they had assembled enough of a stock position to believe they could carry forward in a bidding war if a bidding war in fact were likely (LEHM?), and (3) felt confident enough that we - the shareholders - would take the bid. Time is the ally of that other hostile bidder. 2. A friendly merger/takeover. Doesn't need to be disclosed until Al and the board are ready. In the meantime, speculation fuels the price of the stock and continuously strengthens VLSI's negotiating position. Again, time is the friend. re. This stock is in big trouble. Well, sell your position, then, or hedge it with a put. I'm not because I don't agree with you. Here's why: The dynamics of the situation: A number of heavy hitters have in fact assembled very large positions in this company. Look at the CBOE options tables. Yestereday, 2000 March 17.5 calls were rolled in one stroke to April. Today another 1500. Do the math. Those are OPTIONS. Look at the trading volume and the sizes of the trades occurring. It ain't people like you and me doing the buying and the selling (of course it is, but our positions are rounding errors) Also. Do NOT forget about LEHM's activity, and the position of the French M&A Specialists (can't remember their name). The simple fact that LEHM kept kept raising the ante this last few days ought to tell you something. You think that whoever is behind them is doing this for grins? Product announcements: A bunch of them the last couple of weeks. Were they rushed? I suspect. Still. Sector upgrade: See Linda's note today on that subject. There's more, but the long and short of it is that this company is toast one way or the other. The only thing we don't know is when or for how much.

To: lifeisgood who wrote (5807)	3/19/1999 10:37:00 AM
From: OldAIMGuy	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 6565

Hi LIG, I've been reviewing VLSI's record as far back as I have records. They came public in 1983 at $13/share and $3.42 for Book Value and Revenues of $35.8MM. Two years later, Revenues were doubled to $78.7MM and BV had risen to $5.13. By '87 Revs. were $172MM and BV was up to $6.15 By 1990 Revs. had nearly doubled again at $324.8MM but BV was flat to slightly down. Again another double in revs and improvement in BV by '95. It's at this point that revenues stalled while Book Value continued to grow to its current ~$12/share. From this point forward, I'd guess these folks could double the peak sales of a couple of years ago within 24 months and probably continue to add to book value as well. With all those doublings, one would have expected the stock to have managed much better than it has in all this time. The earnings trail is the most obvious answer. If there is disappointment, it was the overall margins. Earnings seemed to bounce like a superball. It was my "bet" that the ball was going to start to bounce higher with each cycle and I am still an investor because that belief is still in place. This stock has been in my portf. since late 1990 or early 1991. I have no complaints. What I'd anticipated was a long term growth of sales and book value and I got it. It was AIM that continued to take advantage of VLSI's inconsistent earnings trail by buying on weakness and selling into strength. Thank you Mr. Lichello, wherever you are!! Philips or any other company merging with or buying out VLSI is not the end of the world. If it's a cash event, then it's a taxable event for me. If it's a stock swap, then I have to decide whether I want the new company's stock. We faced that with DIGI and Alcatel last year and I chose to pay the taxes and be done with it. So far that's proved to be a wise decision. I'm enjoying the thread here more than almost any time in the past. The mood, speculation and strategies expressed here are great. If the internet needed a highlight as to how well its instant transfer of information and breadth of its "community" is, this particular event has justified it. At this point the better Mr. Stein does, the better all the Longs do. Best regards, Tom