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Microcap & Penny Stocks : Globalstar Telecommunications Limited GSAT -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: djane who wrote (4639)	5/16/1999 2:43:00 PM
From: RMiethe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 29987

The question on Iridium should not be bogged down by charges of shoddy software and hardware (almost all of which charges are not true, having checked them out-- and most of which make people's eyes glaze over anyway) but how it is that Motorola executives (with their bankers) at the highest level could have allowed a $5 billion boondoggle, how they could have milked and sucked billions in capital from believing investor participants and caused such a financial calamity for investors as Iridium has become. I don't think this is the time for techno-engineers to try to outmacho one another on their knowledge displays here on SI posts. This Iridium thing stinks to high heaven, smells like outright fraud. And I would not be surprised if some people are in jail after all this is done. That, I think, is the real issue, not the diversionary techno one. Even more peculiar-- the investment bankers who peddled Iridium capital still have their positions, and yet Staiano and Grant at Iridium are gone? It reinforces and reclarifies the meaning of the term "banking whore". One has to ask how it is that Thomas Watts of Merrill Lynch came to state Iridium would have 5 million users in FY 2002 when the first Iridium underwriting occurred back in June 1997, what extensive research and due diligence he and the investment bankers at Merrill did to get to that number INDEPENDENT of Iridium's own statements. I am sure plaintiff's counsel will want that due diligence material from Watts and the rest of the Merrill "gang". And where the military stood in all this. I take such an interest in this Iridium fiasco because of how it affects Globalstar and Loral stock as investments. I do not think the market has really separated the two companies (Iridium and Globalstar) in its mind, and if in fact this Iridium issue is what it appears to be-- outright negligence rising to the level of fraud-- then Globalstar shareholders, along with Loral shareholders, have been put through an unnecessary black night awaiting for Globalstar to make its debut, to prove itself, with all the Iridium trash behind, around, and on it. And that should tick Globalstar shareholders off. I do not think the Globalstar story has the Iridium issues in it. I don't think Air Touch, Vodaphone, TESAM, and Elsacom just spit out pablums to investors in Globalstar. Bernard Schwartz did not need to have three of the partners I mentioned above give a CC for the Globalstar investors to Wall Street-- he did not have to have Air Touch, TESAM, and Elsacom answer Wall Street questions. But he did. I just don't see BLS pulling this if he had anything to hide as far as Globalstar's subscriber depth goes. He, in contrast to Iridium, seems to have been far more accessible to Wall Street in the past three months. I count in that time seven public Wall Street appearances, discussions, conferences in which he has been a lead participant. Two for Iridium. None for Motorola. None. I don't think the negligence issue is there with Globalstar as it is with Iridium, and I don't think the market issue (the lack of subscribers) is a reality in the Globalstar (or Iridium for that matter) case. The subscribers are there, the question in Iridium is how it could have made so many mistakes "unintentionally" (which somehow I can't buy that it did. The handsets weren't ready? Not our fault. Did not begin manufacturing them on time, even though we had ten years to plan for when to manufacture them. We just did not time it correctly, even though we were spending $128 million in November 1998 to tell everyone "Iridium is here". Uh huh. Ok. Yeah, I believe that.) But one thing I do know-- Silicon Investor board "pssng contests" on techno know-how of the Globalstar versus Iridium systems avoid the greater issue of how Mototola came to where it is now with Iridium, and how Merrill Lynch (a la Orange County) came to write so glowingly on Iridium back in 1997 causing investors losses not shared in by Merrill Lynch investment banking, or its satellite analyst... I for one would like to read instead what the lawyers see (poster Carleton sounds like one-- at least he reads what I write)-- not the techno-stuff anymore. Or will we read lawyers writing this is all confidential, blah, blah, blah? The techno-debate diverts from the real issue, which is that Iridium now is, as poster Goodboy pointed out, a lawyer's feast. A worse calamity for Iridium I cannot imagine. All this from one who has never owned Iridium...

To: djane who wrote (4639)	5/17/1999 10:30:00 AM
From: djane	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

briefing.com. JP Morgan downgrade of I* 10:00 -- 11:00 ET (Updated throughout the hour)****** Iridium World Communications (IRID) 9 1/16 -1 3/8: JP Morgan downgrades communications provider from a "market perform" to a "market underperform"; lack of distribution has lead to capital structure problems, and the company is in the process of renegotiating bank terms with DLJ.....