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

To: Caxton Rhodes who wrote (30003)	5/13/1999 6:59:00 PM
From: quidditch	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 152472

30,000: Fitting it should be a thread veteran. Here's hoping the board will be hot, heavy and bumptious at 40,000, 50,000....Cheers to all. Nextwave, toast and LWIN notwithstanding. Assuming SURF was not transferred to LWIN in the spin-off, and depending on SURF's status in bankruptcy, if that's where it is (I've got to get up to snuff) and the terms of its plan of reorganization, Q's ownership interest in SURF has not been extinguished: [All the following being speculation in my absence of knowledge of facts, but the concepts are valid:] Companies are generally required (with exceptions) to write down certain assets on their balance sheets (whether securities held for sale or held for investment) to the lower of cost or market value, which is another way in certain cases of marking to market. Once SURF's prospects dimmed with the impending bankruptcy filing, Q apparently took the not illogical position of writing off its entire investment in SURF and incurring the charge. But this is for FINANCIAL REPORTING PURPOSES and does not imply Q!'s legal ownership interest in the shares is somehow less than before SURF hit the skids. Obviously, the VALUE of its interest is less, is "0" for financial reporting purposes, but it still owns the shares. At such time as SURF emerges from bankruptcy, pays or begins paying its restructured debt and starts doing business, and if the market wants to pay something of value for those shares, Q can elect at the appropriate time to reverse all or a portion of the charge and, once again, record its equity position on its balance sheet (presumably under investments or other assets). [Now reading subsequent Gregg posts, Gregg clearly has a different take on the reversal of the charge and recording value again, absent a sale--I would yield to Gregg on this point] Sorry for the long post. Regards. Steven