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Technology Stocks : Loral Space & Communications -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jeff Vayda who wrote (5522)	3/19/1999 2:28:00 PM
From: Rocket Scientist	Respond to of 10852

<You mentioned that you invested with the hope of a profit in the not too distant future. Have you set a time frame or is it floating? > Well, as I understand the company's prognosis, Loral should start showing a net profit in 2001; This year it's clearly going to lose money (managment predicted about a 1$ per share), and next year I'm sure it will as well, even if G* is very fast out the gate. Mgmt says G* will hit the breakeven point sometime next year (I'm guessing late next year), so in 2001 both G* and Loral should have positive bottom lines. I guess my main points about the situation with Loral is the following: (1) Loral's prospects are much more tied up with G* than some believe, because G* is not likely to be a neutral event in Loral's income statement; it's either highly positive contributor, or highly negative. Obviously, I hope/believe the former. But the market, looking at Iridium, fears the latter. And G* could bleed Loral faster than Skynet, et. al. can generate profits, at least for several more years. (2) EBITDA is not a reassuring indicator to me, especially the way Loral keeps restating it; and with all of the inter company transactions, it's difficult to know what it really means. I've started looking farther down the income statement: I'd really like to see operating income, for starters, keep improving. Last quarter, Loral was positive (barely) on this line for the first time since buying Orion. It will be interesting to watch this line over the next few quarters. Regards, RS