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Technology Stocks : Broadband Wireless Access [WCII, NXLK, WCOM, satellite..] -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Obewon who wrote (159)	5/7/1999 7:24:00 PM
From: SteveG	Respond to of 1860

<..If ARTT is forced into bankruptcy, other companies will be denied the licenses for a long time over which WCII and Teligent can continue opening new markets...> First off, let me say that I still think ARTT gets a deal done, and am looking to next week. But I really don't buy the argument that a potential investor/partner is motivated to close a deal so that ART's licenses don't fall into bankruptcy. ART's weakness is not somehow their strength, IMO. <..ARTT has one advantage in its corner with regards to forcing a deal by June, Lucent, which does not want ARTT to default on hundreds of millions in vendor financing...> Obewon- First, running out of a cash in June is not in ANY way advantageous to ARTT. Second, LU doesn't have hundreds of millions in financing at stake. They floated ART $25MM, and invariably have the equipment and licenses as collateral. Bottom line, Hirsch HAS to close this soon - and the longer he waits the higher the risk. Reasonable speculation is an equity partner (vs. just straight financing). The Cisco/GE Cap speculation is an interesting and compelling argument. First because LU's strength is in voice and voice-switch integration - NOT ART's market. Cisco however, has the strengths in ART's DATA based market focus. GE Capital is known to have been interested in BBFW since at LEAST last October, when they brought in a noted BBFW analyst to give a talk on this topic to their group, and have kept up on BBFW analyst relationships. BTW, ML is currently restricted on ART. However, IF we assume LU is still the vendor of choice, then ARTT needs at least $125MM to fund their build. So an equity partner (I've heard WAG speculation that telco-mogul names like McCaw and Gabelli have surfaced) would put in this amount for a percentage of the company. The question is, WHAT percentage would $125MM buy? More thoughts on this later.