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

To: Sawtooth who wrote (4693)	5/18/1999 1:47:00 PM
From: djane	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 29987

Report from I* shareholder meeting [I* relaunch (!) in a couple months and Kyocera phones ship in 1 month!] Top>Business and Finance>Stocks>Services>Communications Services>IRID (Iridium World Comm. Ltd.) avoci and everyone else: The Poop by: LawrenceCooper (M/The Nation's Capitol) 13605 of 13627 first, Avoci I mentioned your name because some moron posted that you and I were one and the same. second, I have just gotten in from the shareholder meeting. Boy can two hours seem like a long time. I was not allowed to tape the meeting, but I do have copious notes that I will post once I transcribe them. I also want to thank the Teledesicans who monitor this board for their support and for the kind word at the meeting. I did not meet anyone else from this board other than QuantumScience. I did meet a lot of AOL denizens though. third: John Richardson is a nice Australian chap who was drafted into the CEO position. He has much experience at rescuing distressed companies. I think he has the proper experience and perspective to attack Iridium's problems. He goes to Wall Street this week to negotiate with the banks. Don't despair, John Richardson has the poroper perspective. He believes that Staiano launched 6 months too early and was too focused on technical parameters. Staiano did not know how to bring together the total pictire. Richardson called it "extreme arrogance" on Iridium to believe that people would automatically scoop up the product. fourth: Kyocera phones will finally ship in about a month. Apparently there were some antenna power control problems and Iridium pulled the phones after 10,000 had shipped. I did get to play with the single and dual mode Kyocera phones (ones that do work). They are not as large as I thought. The single mode was about the size of the original Motorola flip phone, but lighter. The dual mode was a little larger, but withouot the satellite cradle, the phone was easily carried in a shirt pocket. Motorola will be coming out this fall with its Laguna phone--slightly smaller than the Kyocera single mode phone. Size and weight is not an issue folks. MArketing and education is the issue. Last: Overall I think the meeting went very well. There was a little contentiousness from one or two people, but all the questions were fairly intelligent and well formed. Several had good suggestions that Richardson will work on with the board. The tone was not upbeat, but it was assertive that there was work to do and that Iridium was up to the task. Bottomline: I'm staying long and will buy a couple hundred more shares. P.S. I talked with Bruce Dale of Iridium Ops and he was emphatic that there are no holes in the constellation. The system is working extremely well. Crosslinks work fine and do not require thrustrer burns to maintain the links). Fuel consumption is not a problem. The satellites have considerable fuel margin, enough to be used for 7 years and still leave 15-20% as reserve (wanttabet: I now pronounce you officially clueless on technology issues) (Brad: that was a nice picture of you at the horse races. Please stay off the track in the future) MORE TO COME LATER. I MAY NOT POST TOMORRROW BECAUSE I WILL BE AT THE STAR WARS OPENING. Posted: 05/18/99, 12:16PM EDT as a reply to: Msg 13602 by avoci Pie, yes I was by: LawrenceCooper (M/The Nation's Capitol) 13617 of 13627 Was. A long discussion with finance type at the stockholder meeting convinced me to saty out of bonds at this time. As for John_x_100: I don't see bankruptcy for the near term future. Maybe in a year if things don't pick up. Iridium has a 6/1 debt/equity ratio that John Richardson has as priority number 1 on his things to fix list. John is the CEO for the time being. He will stay on to fix the problems. His long term tenure requires some family discussion since they are back in South Africa. He's not even being paid by Iridium to do this, but by his prior company. Posted: 05/18/99, 12:47PM EDT as a reply to: Msg 13610 by PieInTheSky_NeedleInTheEye Brazlo by: LawrenceCooper (M/The Nation's Capitol) 13619 of 13627 I asked that question specifically. The response I did get was that 1) Leo Mondale has most of his savings in Iridium stock, and 2) All equity holders, even the strategic partners will be affected by any dilution. I read into that and other remarks that debt to equity conversion will likely happen. Dilution will happen, but that when Iridium relaunches in a couple of months (HEY, I FORGOT TO MENTION THE RELAUNCH!!!) the stock price will rebound. John Richardson believes that IRID can pull down $2-4 BILLION per year in revenue. With $1.2B minutes/year capacity this can be done and he says WILL be done with competitive pricing. Yes, IRIDIUM will have competitive airtime pricing versus Localstar's vaportime. Rememeber no one else can provide any service like this and ICO and G* have ZERO product. It's airtime vs vaportime and I'm betting on Iridium. Remember this is an investment and is quite risky. Never gamble or invest in stocks money you can't afford to lose. If you can't afford to lose it, put it in a reputable Stock Index Fund. Posted: 05/18/99, 12:56PM EDT as a reply to: Msg 13616 by Brazlo