George Gilder - Forbes ASAP Message Board

Sponsor

To: Roger Hess who wrote (4218)	5/11/2000 9:24:00 AM
From: Wyätt Gwyön	Read Replies (1) of 5853

The WSJ had an interesting article about the AWE IPO when it came out. Focus was on T's taking the unique step of making the offering open to all employees--and the attendant headaches. This was done partially in response to negative feedback about the LU spinoff, as many T employees resented not having the chance to participate. So for AWE, they went whole hog the other way. With 145,000 employees, many of T's personnel are not very familiar with investing. I went into an ATT Wireless store the day of the IPO, where an enthusiastic cashier informed me that the spinoff [sic] was being done because AWE is the only part of ATT that makes money [sic]. Coming to market at around 70BB with 360MM (??) shares in the float, the AWE offering was obviously not set to catapult. Obvious to anybody familiar with stocks, but probably not to a lot of T employees who were making their first purchase by borrowing $3000 from their credit-card issuer (employee purchases had to be in 100-lots). Gilder should have disclosed his interest in QCOM in his WSJ piece. Even his loyal minions should not try to defend that one.