Well, that has been an important part of the reason I have put money into this company. It is disturbing to me that I haven't read about those things in any of the analyst reports (not that I have read all that many of them). They have focused on the negative things, especially the cash flow situation. I would be the last person to dismiss those concerns, and the fact that they are bleeding cash is a "Like, duh" cause for concern. But they just sold a business for $1.5b. That gives them a lot of cash to work with and was the amount that they were talking about selling it for in the spring, and analysts were all happy with the price back then. The fact that they got the price they were looking for strongly suggests that this was not a distress sale. They were talking back then about bundling their legacy businesses with Genysys for $1.5b. The fact that they couldn't even essentially give away the legacy businesses shows what an albatross they and their future liabilities are for Alcatel. They have to dump them somehow. I think management knows this, and that getting rid of them is key to their goal of becoming cash flow positive next year. I am holding and will likely add to those holdings over the next 3-6 weeks in the belief (hope?) that they find a way to do that. They have the problem that the French govt and unions surely won't make it easy for them, but as it is their other businesses are essentially subsidizing their French work force in essentially moribund businesses. That is why I said, just spin off the business to the workers, keep a minority share for current stockholders but not enough to make them liable for its losses, make the workers face reality. Sooner or later, we all have to face reality, even workers with strong unions and politicians.
If they do manage to detach themselves from the legacy businesses, IMHO, this stock will be a big winner in 2012. But--WTFDIK? |
