On Monday, June 19, 1995 at 12:00:00 AM UTC-7, Michael Brant wrote:

Is Spectrum Holobytes, a computer game company, just waiting to be turned into a short play?
It's only had one big hit, really - Tetras - yet it's managed to maintain
its stock price despite continuing bad news.
For example, it has lost money for the last seven quarters.
Three years ago it had a market capitalization of $7 million with
$13.5 million in revenue while today its revenues are approaching $100 million with a market cap around $270 million (these numbers come from Spectrum Holobyte Chair Gilman Louie). Louie, in the June issue of
Wired, makes this changing state of affairs sound good, as one might
expect, but interestingly, Paul Wick of the Seligman Communications and Information fund, in Barron's latest Technology roundtable, says the
company has almost no cash and that with 23 million shares outstanding
at $15 (market value $350 million) the stock is overpriced considering
it's a consistently unprofitable company.

Gilman Louie says they are shipping one good game a month. Paul Wick
says ship dates have been missed and, aside from the hype over a coming
Star Trak CD-ROM game, the company's products have been duds.
Herb Greenberg of the San Francisco Chronicle has called the stock Teflon II, amazed at how bad news keeps sliding off it. They just reported lower revenues and higher losses for the 4th qtr - worse than expected. To
quote Greenberg, "Spectrum investors might not want to lose sight of the
fact that with too much abuse, Teflon can stop working".
Scott Turkel who founded the hedge fund TCM Partners in '93 after 11 years
as an equity block trader at Goldman, Sachs and Lehman Brothers says
the stock is only worth 10 (currently at 15.5, up 1.125 today), has poor fundamentals, excessive valuation, and a poor balance sheet.
Why has the stock stayed buoyant? As mentioned above, the market awaits
the *late* Star Trek game!

Perhaps it also has to do with new major-league backing -- Kleiner Perkins Caufiled & Byers, AT&T, and Viacom's Paramount subsidiary.

Doing my own digging, I talked to a friend who used to work in the computer game industry and he's not impressed with the company.

So, is this company positioned as a short or, as Gilman Louie no doubt
likes to believe, is it a long poised to dominate interactive entertainment? --
Michael Brant
Autodesk Inc.
mich...@autodesk.com
uunet!acad!michaelb

c

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On Saturday, September 23, 2023 at 5:59:32 PM UTC-7, KP2 KP2 wrote:

On Monday, June 19, 1995 at 12:00:00 AM UTC-7, Michael Brant wrote:

Is Spectrum Holobytes, a computer game company, just waiting to be turned into a short play?
It's only had one big hit, really - Tetras - yet it's managed to maintain its stock price despite continuing bad news.
For example, it has lost money for the last seven quarters.
Three years ago it had a market capitalization of $7 million with
$13.5 million in revenue while today its revenues are approaching $100 million with a market cap around $270 million (these numbers come from Spectrum Holobyte Chair Gilman Louie). Louie, in the June issue of
Wired, makes this changing state of affairs sound good, as one might expect, but interestingly, Paul Wick of the Seligman Communications and Information fund, in Barron's latest Technology roundtable, says the company has almost no cash and that with 23 million shares outstanding
at $15 (market value $350 million) the stock is overpriced considering it's a consistently unprofitable company.

Gilman Louie says they are shipping one good game a month. Paul Wick
says ship dates have been missed and, aside from the hype over a coming Star Trak CD-ROM game, the company's products have been duds.
Herb Greenberg of the San Francisco Chronicle has called the stock Teflon II,
amazed at how bad news keeps sliding off it. They just reported lower revenues and higher losses for the 4th qtr - worse than expected. To
quote Greenberg, "Spectrum investors might not want to lose sight of the fact that with too much abuse, Teflon can stop working".
Scott Turkel who founded the hedge fund TCM Partners in '93 after 11 years as an equity block trader at Goldman, Sachs and Lehman Brothers says
the stock is only worth 10 (currently at 15.5, up 1.125 today), has poor fundamentals, excessive valuation, and a poor balance sheet.
Why has the stock stayed buoyant? As mentioned above, the market awaits the *late* Star Trek game!

Perhaps it also has to do with new major-league backing -- Kleiner Perkins Caufiled & Byers, AT&T, and Viacom's Paramount subsidiary.

Doing my own digging, I talked to a friend who used to work in the computer
game industry and he's not impressed with the company.

So, is this company positioned as a short or, as Gilman Louie no doubt likes to believe, is it a long poised to dominate interactive entertainment?
--
Michael Brant
Autodesk Inc.
mich...@autodesk.com
uunet!acad!michaelb

c

Thanks for your opinion!

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