[问题] mei168: Can we buy NT right now?
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主顾们仍然看好NT，NT今天一日进四个合同。不过我还是建议你等到5月29日以后再
说。最保险那当然是等到6月下旬，NT自己宣布的restatement出台时:
May 27 ― Intra Call Center Deploys Nortel Networks Convergence Solutions for its IP Contact Centre
Intra Call Center, a French company specialising in the outsourcing of contact centres, has deployed Nortel Networks solutions for its new contact centre in Lyon. Intra Call Center already operates a site in Amiens with about 500 active agents, equipped with Nortel Networks Meridian 1 telephony solutions.
May 27 ― Infomobile Offshore IP Contact Centre Using Nortel Networks Technology
French contact centre operator Infomobile has deployed Nortel Networks solutions for its first offshore IP (Internet Protocol) Contact Centre, based in Casablanca, Morocco.
May 27 ― Spanish Cable Operator Deploys Nortel Networks Optical Solution to Deliver Residential Multimedia Services
R Cable, the fibre optics cable telecom operator in Spain's Galicia region, has selected Nortel Networks to build an optical DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) network, bringing improved multimedia capabilities to enterprise and residential customers.
说。最保险那当然是等到6月下旬，NT自己宣布的restatement出台时:
May 27 ― Intra Call Center Deploys Nortel Networks Convergence Solutions for its IP Contact Centre
Intra Call Center, a French company specialising in the outsourcing of contact centres, has deployed Nortel Networks solutions for its new contact centre in Lyon. Intra Call Center already operates a site in Amiens with about 500 active agents, equipped with Nortel Networks Meridian 1 telephony solutions.
May 27 ― Infomobile Offshore IP Contact Centre Using Nortel Networks Technology
French contact centre operator Infomobile has deployed Nortel Networks solutions for its first offshore IP (Internet Protocol) Contact Centre, based in Casablanca, Morocco.
May 27 ― Spanish Cable Operator Deploys Nortel Networks Optical Solution to Deliver Residential Multimedia Services
R Cable, the fibre optics cable telecom operator in Spain's Galicia region, has selected Nortel Networks to build an optical DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) network, bringing improved multimedia capabilities to enterprise and residential customers.
former-ABC
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15CAD后就到顶了？要不我在14CAD做short咯。 
从今天的一篇文章看(要仔细读有关NT的那一段)，情况就好像越来越明显，这一切都像
是NT董事会自己一手泡制出来的：
TheStreet.com
The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week
Friday May 28, 7:00 am ET
By George Mannes, TheStreet.com Senior Writer
Grasso's Clipping
Payback's a ... Spitzer
1. The Richard Don't Always Get Richer
Dick Grasso says he looks forward to his day in court. We're not so sure he should.
Grasso, the former chairman and CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, was responding to a lawsuit filed Monday by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Among other allegations in the civil suit, Spitzer accuses that Grasso was wildly overpaid, in violation of New York's Not-for-Profit Law, that directors were misled about the size of Grasso's pay package, and that Grasso's dual role as a regulator and an NYSE employee created a conflict of interest -- an incentive that gave NYSE board members incentive to overpay him, lest they fall on his bad side.
Breaking a long silence, Grasso fought back in a lengthy opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal Tuesday. Maybe it was a tight deadline he was working under, but not everything Grasso wrote made sense.
Like this:
"Mr. Spitzer charges that the Board was somehow misled or uninformed -- even though it was the Board that approved each of my contracts that set forth exactly how I would be compensated and it was the Board that approved my compensation every year."
Uh, this may seem like an obvious point, Dick, but you can be on an organization's board and be misled. If you don't believe me, there are a bunch of former Tyco (NYSE:TYC - News), Enron and WorldCom directors I'd love to introduce you to.
But the funniest aspect of Grasso's defense is that the board knew what it was getting into. "The men and women who set my compensation knew exactly what they were doing," he writes. The board, he says, had "eyes open to every dollar I had earned and been awarded."
Eyes open, maybe. But we at the lab doubt that they, or any other MBA on Wall Street, could have figured out exactly what Grasso had earned.
See, we leafed through some of the relevant documents last year, and refreshed our memories this week. But Grasso's compensation is still a mess to us. There's the Incentive Compensation Plan, the Long Term Incentive Plan, the Capital Accumulation Plan, the Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan, and the Supplemental Executive Savings Plan. There are the vesting dates, the Comparator Group, the Chairman's Award, and the bit about how the incremental $1 million ICP could result in a $6.8 million boost to SERP. Yeah, right.
If anything, the presentations of Grasso's pay seem designed to sow confusion, not clarify.
So if you ask us, we're not so sure that Grasso's name will be cleared in a court of law. No matter how much money he ends up holding onto, we suspect that the more the murky details of Grasso's pay come to light, the more his reputation will be tarnished, not varnished.
2. To Email BB&T or Not to Email BB&T
Imagine you've decided you don't want to get any speeding tickets. Which of the following strategies should you employ?
1. Be sure to drive no faster than the posted speed limit.
2. Lock your car in the garage and never drive again.
Well, if you chose answer No. 2, it appears you have a future at the financial services firm BB&T (NYSE:BBT - News).
Email Emissions Reduced
Don't hit send
See, according to a source inside the North Carolina-based operator of banks and brokerages, some top executives at the firm -- for example, the president and chief investment officer of BB&T Asset Management -- aren't permitted to send any email. Receive email, yes, but send it, no.
We don't know what BB&T's reasoning might be here, but we suspect the alleged restrictions have something to do with a desire to ensure that top-level executives never end up sending emails that might result in embarrassment for the firm and/or litigation -- say, something on par with ex-Credit Suisse First Boston banker Frank Quattrone's now-infamous "clean up those files" email.
A BB&T spokeswoman didn't respond to the research lab's request for comment on the reported restrictions.
"It makes you wonder why they would implement such a policy," writes our source, who requested anonymity in the hopes of not getting fired. "Is it because they figure they have something to hide? Or do they have a lack of confidence in the brains of their executives that they must try to save them from incriminating themselves?"
We don't have the answer to that. But we know the people who do: some top executives at BB&T. If you'd like to shed some light here, send us an email. From your home account, if necessary.
3. Mace's Spray and Wash
If you were looking for a way to invest in the homeland security phenomenon, would you invest in a chain of car washes?
Of course not. But that's what people did this week in the wake of the recent chatter about a domestic terrorism threat. Along with other security-themed stocks, Mace Security International (NasdaqNM:MACE - News) popped 32% Wednesday, echoing an earlier security-themed spike in April.
The problem, of course, is that Mace -- which sells the eponymous Mace pepper spray and surveillance products -- is as much of a security company as Tony Randall was a kung-fu master. In the latest quarter, 15% of its revenue, or $1.9 million in sales, came from security products. None of that security money made it to the company's $706,000 operating income line for the quarter.
We won't delve too much deeper into the other reasons not to invest in the company, such as the extensively disclosed related party transactions.
Let's just say that on Wall Street, hope springs eternal. As do momentum plays of dubious merit.
4. More to Tell at Nortel
On April 28, Nortel Networks (NYSE:NT - News) dumped President and CEO Frank Dunn "for cause."
This week, nearly four weeks later, Nortel revealed that Dunn had resigned from the company's board of directors May 21.
Hmmm. First Dunn gets canned, presumably for reasons associated with the ongoing investigations and restatements of Nortel's books. Then, 23 days later, he resigns from Nortel's board.
Which gets us thinking: Those must have been some pretty fun 23 days of small talk around the boardroom table.
"Hey, Frank, how are things going?"
"Oh, great, except for the part where all of you canned me April 28."
A Nortel spokeswoman says Dunn didn't participate in any business of the board following his termination as CEO. She won't tell us anything else, such as how often the board met between April 28 and May 21, or -- assuming Dunn was invited to attend these meetings -- how warmly that invitation was extended.
5. Child's Play in the Resume
When it comes to company filings, we at the lab like to read the fine print. It nearly always pays off.
This week's evidence: A passage in the recently filed proxy statement of Quepasa, the bubble-era operator of a Spanish language portal that is now in the business of Spanish pay-per-click marketing.
In the biography of Quepasa Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Peterson, there's a biographical note that caught the eye of a loyal research lab correspondent, who pointed it out to us.
The 31-year-old CEO, according to the proxy statement, "has been involved in the programming and operations of computers and digital communications for over 20 years."
Hmm. Thirty-one years old, more than 20 years of computing -- are we supposed to believe that the guy was programming computers when he was 10 years old? We called Peterson just to check if we had a typo here.
Sure enough, Peterson confessed that the implication that he had started programming computers when he was 10 years old was a little off. In fact, he says, he was 6.
What happened, says Peterson, was that when he was a tyke, he lived across the street from a boy whose father ran the computer lab at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The two kids used to hang out at the lab, he says. And back in those days, if you were fiddling around with, say, the DEC PDP-11 computer in the lab -- a pretty hot piece of equipment back then, but primitive by today's standards -- well, you were pretty much programming.
"It's a heck of a claim to be able to make," says Peterson, "and I'm glad to be one of the few people who can make it with a straight face."
There's what we found when we read the fine print this time: further evidence of our misspent youth.
是NT董事会自己一手泡制出来的：
TheStreet.com
The Five Dumbest Things on Wall Street This Week
Friday May 28, 7:00 am ET
By George Mannes, TheStreet.com Senior Writer
Grasso's Clipping
Payback's a ... Spitzer
1. The Richard Don't Always Get Richer
Dick Grasso says he looks forward to his day in court. We're not so sure he should.
Grasso, the former chairman and CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, was responding to a lawsuit filed Monday by New York State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Among other allegations in the civil suit, Spitzer accuses that Grasso was wildly overpaid, in violation of New York's Not-for-Profit Law, that directors were misled about the size of Grasso's pay package, and that Grasso's dual role as a regulator and an NYSE employee created a conflict of interest -- an incentive that gave NYSE board members incentive to overpay him, lest they fall on his bad side.
Breaking a long silence, Grasso fought back in a lengthy opinion piece published in The Wall Street Journal Tuesday. Maybe it was a tight deadline he was working under, but not everything Grasso wrote made sense.
Like this:
"Mr. Spitzer charges that the Board was somehow misled or uninformed -- even though it was the Board that approved each of my contracts that set forth exactly how I would be compensated and it was the Board that approved my compensation every year."
Uh, this may seem like an obvious point, Dick, but you can be on an organization's board and be misled. If you don't believe me, there are a bunch of former Tyco (NYSE:TYC - News), Enron and WorldCom directors I'd love to introduce you to.
But the funniest aspect of Grasso's defense is that the board knew what it was getting into. "The men and women who set my compensation knew exactly what they were doing," he writes. The board, he says, had "eyes open to every dollar I had earned and been awarded."
Eyes open, maybe. But we at the lab doubt that they, or any other MBA on Wall Street, could have figured out exactly what Grasso had earned.
See, we leafed through some of the relevant documents last year, and refreshed our memories this week. But Grasso's compensation is still a mess to us. There's the Incentive Compensation Plan, the Long Term Incentive Plan, the Capital Accumulation Plan, the Supplemental Executive Retirement Plan, and the Supplemental Executive Savings Plan. There are the vesting dates, the Comparator Group, the Chairman's Award, and the bit about how the incremental $1 million ICP could result in a $6.8 million boost to SERP. Yeah, right.
If anything, the presentations of Grasso's pay seem designed to sow confusion, not clarify.
So if you ask us, we're not so sure that Grasso's name will be cleared in a court of law. No matter how much money he ends up holding onto, we suspect that the more the murky details of Grasso's pay come to light, the more his reputation will be tarnished, not varnished.
2. To Email BB&T or Not to Email BB&T
Imagine you've decided you don't want to get any speeding tickets. Which of the following strategies should you employ?
1. Be sure to drive no faster than the posted speed limit.
2. Lock your car in the garage and never drive again.
Well, if you chose answer No. 2, it appears you have a future at the financial services firm BB&T (NYSE:BBT - News).
Email Emissions Reduced
Don't hit send
See, according to a source inside the North Carolina-based operator of banks and brokerages, some top executives at the firm -- for example, the president and chief investment officer of BB&T Asset Management -- aren't permitted to send any email. Receive email, yes, but send it, no.
We don't know what BB&T's reasoning might be here, but we suspect the alleged restrictions have something to do with a desire to ensure that top-level executives never end up sending emails that might result in embarrassment for the firm and/or litigation -- say, something on par with ex-Credit Suisse First Boston banker Frank Quattrone's now-infamous "clean up those files" email.
A BB&T spokeswoman didn't respond to the research lab's request for comment on the reported restrictions.
"It makes you wonder why they would implement such a policy," writes our source, who requested anonymity in the hopes of not getting fired. "Is it because they figure they have something to hide? Or do they have a lack of confidence in the brains of their executives that they must try to save them from incriminating themselves?"
We don't have the answer to that. But we know the people who do: some top executives at BB&T. If you'd like to shed some light here, send us an email. From your home account, if necessary.
3. Mace's Spray and Wash
If you were looking for a way to invest in the homeland security phenomenon, would you invest in a chain of car washes?
Of course not. But that's what people did this week in the wake of the recent chatter about a domestic terrorism threat. Along with other security-themed stocks, Mace Security International (NasdaqNM:MACE - News) popped 32% Wednesday, echoing an earlier security-themed spike in April.
The problem, of course, is that Mace -- which sells the eponymous Mace pepper spray and surveillance products -- is as much of a security company as Tony Randall was a kung-fu master. In the latest quarter, 15% of its revenue, or $1.9 million in sales, came from security products. None of that security money made it to the company's $706,000 operating income line for the quarter.
We won't delve too much deeper into the other reasons not to invest in the company, such as the extensively disclosed related party transactions.
Let's just say that on Wall Street, hope springs eternal. As do momentum plays of dubious merit.
4. More to Tell at Nortel
On April 28, Nortel Networks (NYSE:NT - News) dumped President and CEO Frank Dunn "for cause."
This week, nearly four weeks later, Nortel revealed that Dunn had resigned from the company's board of directors May 21.
Hmmm. First Dunn gets canned, presumably for reasons associated with the ongoing investigations and restatements of Nortel's books. Then, 23 days later, he resigns from Nortel's board.
Which gets us thinking: Those must have been some pretty fun 23 days of small talk around the boardroom table.
"Hey, Frank, how are things going?"
"Oh, great, except for the part where all of you canned me April 28."
A Nortel spokeswoman says Dunn didn't participate in any business of the board following his termination as CEO. She won't tell us anything else, such as how often the board met between April 28 and May 21, or -- assuming Dunn was invited to attend these meetings -- how warmly that invitation was extended.
5. Child's Play in the Resume
When it comes to company filings, we at the lab like to read the fine print. It nearly always pays off.
This week's evidence: A passage in the recently filed proxy statement of Quepasa, the bubble-era operator of a Spanish language portal that is now in the business of Spanish pay-per-click marketing.
In the biography of Quepasa Chairman and CEO Jeffrey Peterson, there's a biographical note that caught the eye of a loyal research lab correspondent, who pointed it out to us.
The 31-year-old CEO, according to the proxy statement, "has been involved in the programming and operations of computers and digital communications for over 20 years."
Hmm. Thirty-one years old, more than 20 years of computing -- are we supposed to believe that the guy was programming computers when he was 10 years old? We called Peterson just to check if we had a typo here.
Sure enough, Peterson confessed that the implication that he had started programming computers when he was 10 years old was a little off. In fact, he says, he was 6.
What happened, says Peterson, was that when he was a tyke, he lived across the street from a boy whose father ran the computer lab at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The two kids used to hang out at the lab, he says. And back in those days, if you were fiddling around with, say, the DEC PDP-11 computer in the lab -- a pretty hot piece of equipment back then, but primitive by today's standards -- well, you were pretty much programming.
"It's a heck of a claim to be able to make," says Peterson, "and I'm glad to be one of the few people who can make it with a straight face."
There's what we found when we read the fine print this time: further evidence of our misspent youth.
former-ABC
投机如同火中取粟
- 注册
- 2002-01-20
- 消息
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At Nortel, All the Straws Are Short
Adding to the telecom-equipment maker's woes: It could soon be in default of a $326 million guarantee by Export Development Canada
Tense times at Nortel Networks, stemming from its ongoing accounting woes, are about to become even more tense. The Brampton (Ont.) telecom-equipment giant faces a May 29 deadline to present audited financial data to a key financial guarantor -- or possibly face a multimillion-dollar payment. That deadline has the potential to create a financial crunch, analysts say.
Bondholders are already jittery. One of the company's five notes, worth $200 million, traded down from the 80-cent mark on May 17 to as low as 75 cents on the dollar by May 20, according to Advantage Data, which researches the bond market. "There's no question Nortel (NT ) is approaching a distressed situation," says Advantage analyst Pierre Robert. "People are definitely getting antsy."
A BusinessWeek analysis of Nortel bonds shows that trading is on a roller coaster. Pricing is down sharply from February but appears to be inching back up again. The $200 million note, trading at 99 cents in February, bounced from 75 cents last week to hit the 80-cent mark on May 25. And a $150 million note, trading at 104 cents on the dollar in February, fell to 85 cents early last week, but was up to 87 cents on May 25.
NATIONAL PRIDE. What's the bond market worried about? Nortel could soon be in default of a $326 million guarantee by Export Development Canada (EDC), which recently granted a temporary waiver to allow the outfit the time to prepare audited financials on the state of its business. Come May 29, that waiver expires -- and Nortel has stated it won't be ready to produce key financial documents by that date.
Both sides are in negotiation, and an EDC spokeswoman says Nortel will likely make some announcement on the status of the waiver on or before May 29. While some analysts believe it's unlikely that a Canadian creditor would close the door on an important Canadian company, there are still concerns that EDC could force Nortel to pay up.
"One can imagine a scenario where EDC says, 'We want out,'" says Bruce Hyman, director of telecom equipment for Standard & Poors Ratings Service. "Then bondholders might say, 'If EDC won't support the biggest company in Canada, why should I?'" A spokeswoman for Nortel confirmed that it's in discussions with EDC, but she declined to comment on the possibility of default triggered by EDC or bondholders.
SPEED BUMPS. The bondholders are key players in Nortel's unfolding drama. Whenever 25% of any bond's holders are in agreement, they could trigger a notice of default, launching a 90-day period during which Nortel would have to produce financial reports. If it doesn't, then the bond accelerates, meaning Nortel would have to pay down the debt on the bond. Then holders of other bonds could also demand payment with only 10 days notice.
As of Dec. 31, 2003, Nortel had long-term debt of $3.9 billion. Problem is, it now has just $3.6 billion in cash on its books. Acceleration of payment "would not be a good thing," observes Lehman Brothers telecom-equipment analyst Steven Levy. According to a May 10 TD Securities report, Nortel disclosed that 34% of the $150 million issue is in the hands of related bondholders.
Getting the formal consent of 25% of a note's holders on anything isn't easy, however. And holders of Nortel's largest bonds, like the $1.5 billion note due in 2006, say acceleration is highly unlikely. But among the smaller bonds, it's "clearly possible," says one bondholder privately.
TOUGH MEASURES. If default is triggered by bondholders and the payment clock starts, Nortel could face the risk of bankruptcy, analysts say. "It's not likely," Levy explains, "but it's still a bothersome-enough possibility." Nortel declined to comment on such a risk.
Nortel clearly has enough cash to pay off its smaller bonds. But in the unlikely event that it's pushed to pay off its entire debt, it would have to find other sources of liquidity. One option would be to sell assets -- anything other than core assets, such as its wireless and IP operations, which are showing strong performance.
Or Nortel could sell up to $3 billion in preferred stock. That would be dilutive to stockholders, but it would stave off more dire consequences while simultaneously satisfying bondholders. But all in all, it's a tactic investors want Nortel to avoid at all costs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Roger O. Crockett in Chicago
Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
http://www.businessweek.com:/print/bwdaily/dnflash/may2004/nf20040526_9069_db016.htm?db
Adding to the telecom-equipment maker's woes: It could soon be in default of a $326 million guarantee by Export Development Canada
Tense times at Nortel Networks, stemming from its ongoing accounting woes, are about to become even more tense. The Brampton (Ont.) telecom-equipment giant faces a May 29 deadline to present audited financial data to a key financial guarantor -- or possibly face a multimillion-dollar payment. That deadline has the potential to create a financial crunch, analysts say.
Bondholders are already jittery. One of the company's five notes, worth $200 million, traded down from the 80-cent mark on May 17 to as low as 75 cents on the dollar by May 20, according to Advantage Data, which researches the bond market. "There's no question Nortel (NT ) is approaching a distressed situation," says Advantage analyst Pierre Robert. "People are definitely getting antsy."
A BusinessWeek analysis of Nortel bonds shows that trading is on a roller coaster. Pricing is down sharply from February but appears to be inching back up again. The $200 million note, trading at 99 cents in February, bounced from 75 cents last week to hit the 80-cent mark on May 25. And a $150 million note, trading at 104 cents on the dollar in February, fell to 85 cents early last week, but was up to 87 cents on May 25.
NATIONAL PRIDE. What's the bond market worried about? Nortel could soon be in default of a $326 million guarantee by Export Development Canada (EDC), which recently granted a temporary waiver to allow the outfit the time to prepare audited financials on the state of its business. Come May 29, that waiver expires -- and Nortel has stated it won't be ready to produce key financial documents by that date.
Both sides are in negotiation, and an EDC spokeswoman says Nortel will likely make some announcement on the status of the waiver on or before May 29. While some analysts believe it's unlikely that a Canadian creditor would close the door on an important Canadian company, there are still concerns that EDC could force Nortel to pay up.
"One can imagine a scenario where EDC says, 'We want out,'" says Bruce Hyman, director of telecom equipment for Standard & Poors Ratings Service. "Then bondholders might say, 'If EDC won't support the biggest company in Canada, why should I?'" A spokeswoman for Nortel confirmed that it's in discussions with EDC, but she declined to comment on the possibility of default triggered by EDC or bondholders.
SPEED BUMPS. The bondholders are key players in Nortel's unfolding drama. Whenever 25% of any bond's holders are in agreement, they could trigger a notice of default, launching a 90-day period during which Nortel would have to produce financial reports. If it doesn't, then the bond accelerates, meaning Nortel would have to pay down the debt on the bond. Then holders of other bonds could also demand payment with only 10 days notice.
As of Dec. 31, 2003, Nortel had long-term debt of $3.9 billion. Problem is, it now has just $3.6 billion in cash on its books. Acceleration of payment "would not be a good thing," observes Lehman Brothers telecom-equipment analyst Steven Levy. According to a May 10 TD Securities report, Nortel disclosed that 34% of the $150 million issue is in the hands of related bondholders.
Getting the formal consent of 25% of a note's holders on anything isn't easy, however. And holders of Nortel's largest bonds, like the $1.5 billion note due in 2006, say acceleration is highly unlikely. But among the smaller bonds, it's "clearly possible," says one bondholder privately.
TOUGH MEASURES. If default is triggered by bondholders and the payment clock starts, Nortel could face the risk of bankruptcy, analysts say. "It's not likely," Levy explains, "but it's still a bothersome-enough possibility." Nortel declined to comment on such a risk.
Nortel clearly has enough cash to pay off its smaller bonds. But in the unlikely event that it's pushed to pay off its entire debt, it would have to find other sources of liquidity. One option would be to sell assets -- anything other than core assets, such as its wireless and IP operations, which are showing strong performance.
Or Nortel could sell up to $3 billion in preferred stock. That would be dilutive to stockholders, but it would stave off more dire consequences while simultaneously satisfying bondholders. But all in all, it's a tactic investors want Nortel to avoid at all costs.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Roger O. Crockett in Chicago
Edited by Douglas Harbrecht
http://www.businessweek.com:/print/bwdaily/dnflash/may2004/nf20040526_9069_db016.htm?db
