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Technology Stocks : INPR - Inprise to Borland (BORL) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?


To: Cube who wrote (2600)4/6/1999 1:42:00 PM
From: David R  Read Replies (1) | Respond to of 5102
 
RE: The only people that will be able to from here on out are the floorless holders and foreign investors with offshore accounts.

You do not have to be a foreign investor. All you need is an account with a broker in a country that has trading rules that allow shorting on OTC (such as Canada). If you truly believe that INPR is going to be a terminal short, then I suggest that you consider opening an account with a Canadian broker and joining the death short.



To: Cube who wrote (2600)4/6/1999 3:21:00 PM
From: Dennis Nicks  Respond to of 5102
 
Thanks for your your explanation, I agree we need to watch the short interest numbers for the next few months to really get an idea of what is going on. However, I still think that the floorless debt shorting has not really started yet, as you seem to think it has.

I took a look at the annual report and firmed up my analysis, it turns out I was pretty conservative with my numbers..

The outstanding value of the Preferred B shares is 738 * 50,000 or $36,900,000. In December, INPR exercised the right to buy back 32 shares for a $1.95Million, which gives a conversion factor 1,950,000/(32*50,000)= 1.22. So if they wanted to exercise the rest, it would cost them roughly $45 million. A big chunk of cash, I agree.

However, with $36.9 million in preferred class B here's the break-down of shares:

At $5 a share, the preferred shares that are available for shorting are: 7,380,000.

At $3 a share, the preferred shares that are available for shorting are: 12,300,000.

Increase in preferred shares available for shorting due to a drop in price from 5 to 3 = 4,920,000

Not only is the short interest << 7 million, even with the share price at $5 (since December 31, 1998), it hasn't increased substantially even though there are now about 5 million more shares available to short for Class B holders!

Again, the preferred B shareholders have not begun shorting the company to death. I agree with you, we need to watch this over the next few months. It just hasn't happened yet.

Dennis