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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Incorporated (QCOM) -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: brian h who wrote (27067)	4/15/1999 4:41:00 AM
From: Mika Kukkanen	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 152472

Brian H: Well, it is frustrating for any company to be under a sort of NDA when signing the deal. Someone previously mentioned a Union dispute in the US, where the management won but couldn't say anything about it, as it was part of the deal -I thought that comment was very astute. If analysts thought that the price tag was 1 Billion US then it would hit Ericsson financially and help fuel the rumors that they capitulated (which to this day, with what I have been told, I think is wrong). Also, in the last week Ericsson has acquired 2 IP related companies for just under 500 USD million (then add the Qcom infra deal in and you can imagine what some financial analysts would think). However, Qualcomm needed to do something with the division and Ericsson certainly would like a cheap in-road to new markets...hence it was a win-win situ! I am surprised that they made any comment about it though and not sure how it slipped out...mind you re-reading your post, the price was a quote from Svenska Dagbladet...but Pia Gideon didn't exactly deny it. Oh well, at least the price is out in the open, we'll just have to wait for the rest to surface. Okay, I am jealous that I don't have Qcom in my small portfolio...but hey, well done to you guys. Cheers, Mika

To: brian h who wrote (27067)	4/15/1999 9:24:00 AM
From: Jon Koplik	Respond to of 152472

Also (regarding the seemingly low price paid to QCOM for infrastructure business). I want to make an analogy (from the world of Wall Street trading). I have heard that when a financial institution calls up the (stock) block trading desk at a place like Salomon Brothers to buy 500,000 shares of XYZ stock, there is some flexibility as to how the "print" (or transaction) can be reported. If the buyer wants to create the impression that they are buying, buying, buying (for whatever purpose) (probably -- because this will actually be their final purchase for quite a while), they would want a higher "print." If they want to accumulate lots more stock soon, they would probably want a low priced "print" (so as to create the impression that an institution was a seller, and Wall Street is now (possibly) stuck "long" with some or all of the 500,000 shares still to be gotten rid of). The way the reported price can be (at least slightly) altered is by choosing whether Salomon acts as a "broker" or a "dealer" on the trade. (Or, as an "agent" or a "principal"). One way allows the commission to be tacked on to the trade price (raising it); the other way has the trade price reported without the commission built in to it (I know commissions are now so low that this example is now sort of stupid for 1999, but it is illustrative anyway, I hope). Moving along to QCOM / ERICY -- since we will probably NEVER know what royalty rate ERICY agreed to pay to Qualcomm, I would assume that the purchase price for the infrastructure division could have been "massaged" toward a lot of different numbers. Jon.