Daily Archives: April 1, 2008

Sprint (S) Can’t Get A Piece Of Apple (AAPL) iPhone

Sprint (NYSE: S) is about to release a new phone from Samsung which has many of the features of the Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone. According to MarketWatch "The new Samsung Instinct, available from Sprint in June, looks somewhat like an iPhone and is supposed to function in a similar way. It’s a touchscreen device with a virtual keyboard, capable of surfing the Web, taking photos and playing music and video."

Even if the handset is in the same league as the iPhone, it is not likely to help Sprint. The No.3 cellular company’s problems go deeper than it products. Consumers would much rather do business with Verizon Wireless or AT&T (NYSE: T). Verizon does not have an "iPhone equivalent" and, based on their most recent earnings report, it has not hurt them at all.

In a poll by MSN Money last year, Sprint was listed as having the highest "poor" rating for its service among all companies in all industries. Forty percent of repondents gave Sprint the lowest rating. No other company did any worse than 30%..

In a "quality service" survey by Vocal Laboratories, Sprint finished last among cellular providers for caller satisfaction and call completion.

The JD Power customer satisfaction survey of wireless customers also puts Sprint in last place.

The new Samsung phone may be hot, but that won’t help Sprint until consumers believe that the company has better-than-average services.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 5:15 pm in Wireless, , ,

Security Spending Tightens, LoJack Warns For Year (LOJN)

Shares of LoJack Corporation (NASDAQ: LOJN) are being hit hard in after-hours trading.  The company is issuing an earnings warning for 2008, although it is quick to point out that this is believed to be entirely due to the current economic situation rather than competitors winning business away or due to dealer relationships.

The guidance was put at $0.75 to $0.85 for this fiscal year, far short of the $1.15 consensus estimate from First Call.  It sees guidance for each the first and second quarter at $0.04 to $0.20 per quarter.  Unfortunately, estimates are $0.25 for this quarter and $0.30 for next.  Fiscal revenues were also put at $213 to $218 million, under the $233+ million estimate from First Call.

The result of the disappointing domestic new cars sales in January and February have led the company estimates for the full year 2008.  The painful part is that they are now expected to be at their lowest level since 1998. The company also noted an acceleration in the decline of new car sales in the first quarter, auto manufacturing cutbacks, and concern expressed by several of the large auto retailers give LoJack the impression that things will not improve in the second half of the year as it had planned.

Southern California is particularly hard hit, and LoJack noted that this was one of its highest penetrated new car markets.  The good side of this is that it still expects double-digit increases in unit volume in international business in 2008.

Unfortunately, this has all of the ear-marks of a generally poor scenario.  In an effort to cut costs the consumer is opting to drive the existing car longer.  It’s probably a safe bet that purchases for used cars is pretty soft too.  LoJack shares are down 20% to $10.20 in after-hours trading.  Its 52-week trading range is $10.05 to $24.24.

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 5:01 pm in Autos, Earnings Warning,

Globalstar $135 Million Funding & Share Lending Agreement (GSAT)

Globalstar, Inc. (NASDAQ: GSAT) intends to offer $135 million of Convertible Senior Notes due 2028, with a $15 million overallotment.  Merrill Lynch and Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. will act as joint Book-Running Managers for this offering.

The Notes will be convertible into Globalstar common stock, cash, or a combination, at Globalstar’s option.   The interest rate, conversion rate, conversion price and other terms of the Notes will be determined at the time of pricing of the offering.

Holders of the Notes may require Globalstar to repurchase the Notes if Globalstar is involved in certain types of corporate transactions or other events constituting a fundamental change (in other words, a put feature).

Globalstar also intends to enter into a share lending agreement with Merrill Lynch to lend shares of its common stock to the share borrower.  Globalstar will enter into an underwriting agreement with Merrill Lynch and the borrower so that the share borrower can sell the borrowed shares in an underwritten registered public offering and will use the short position resulting from the sale of such shares to facilitate the establishment of hedge positions by investors in the Notes.

Globalstar expects that approximately 15 to 20 million of the loaned shares will be initially offered in a fixed price offering, with the remaining shares subsequently offered and sold from time to time at prevailing market prices in various transactions.

Globalstar will not receive any of the proceeds from sales of borrowed shares, but it will receive a nominal lending fee from the share borrower.

For some reason, this sounds like loaning out your house when you plan to sell it.  This isn’t the only time that deals have been structured like this to accommodate collars and to generate lending income.  But it will sure be crucial to see what these terms end up being.

We frequently discuss restructurings, insider activity, activist investor trends, IPO’s, back door plays into IPO’s, SPAC’s, spin-offs, and more on our open email distribution list.

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 3:52 pm in Satellite, Secondary Offering,

The 52-Week Low Club (TDC)(WLSN)(PACT)(ABTL)

Teradata Corp (TDC) Not any news. Slow sell-off all day. Down to $20.11 from 52-week high of $30.08.

Wilsons The Leather Experts (WLSN) CEO leaving. Falls to $.14 from 52-week high of $2.36.

Pacificnet (PACT) Fighting involuntary Chapter 11. Down to $1.05 from 52-week high of $7.15.

Autobytel  (ABTL) No news, just selling. Off to $1/90 from 52-week high of $4.64.

Combinatorx (CRXX) No news. Falls to $3.11 from 52-week high of $7.37.

Commvault Systems (CVLT) No news. Down to $11.35 from 52-week high of $23.04.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 2:56 pm in HI/LOW, , , , , ,

Another Bear Stearns Director Unloads Shares (BSC, JPM)

Another director of Bear Stearns Companies, Inc. (NYSE: BSC) has unloaded his holdings as the stock was trading north of a buyout price for some time.  Paul A. Novelly, a director, has unloaded 125,000 shares in a direct share sale with an average sale price of $10.67. 

The sale date was listed as March 28, 2008, which would have been last Friday.  His share holdings are now also listed as ZERO.  Jimmy Cayne did the same last week.  If these guys thought a much higher bid was coming shortly, would they be unloading their stock after JPMorgan Chase & Co. (NYSE: JPM) already juiced its buyout offer for a better public relations campaign?

This says that Novelly’s sale did not include 3,523.244 shares held in the Non-Employee Directors’ Stock Option and Stock Unit Plan.

We frequently discuss restructurings, insider activity, activist investor trends, IPO’s, back door plays into IPO’s, SPAC’s, spin-offs, and more on our open email distribution list.

Regardless of if a higher bid will or won’t materialize, shares are up 4.1% at $10.92 in late-afternoon trading before the close.

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 2:55 pm in Brokerage Firms, Insider Activity, ,

Talbots, When Low Growth Is Good Enough (TLB)

Talbots (NYSE: TLB) is seeing shares surge today after the apparel maker and retailer unveiled its strategic plan for long-term growth and for productivity improvement.

For starters, the company reaffirmed its guidance and it sees Fiscal-09 between $0.47 and $0.52.  We have consensus as $0.37 EPS from First Call. Talbots is planning for top-line growth of roughly 3%, based on a slightly negative comparable sales with the Talbots brand being 11% and the J. Jill brand rising by +1%.

As far as productivity, Talbots is becoming a design-led organization that will focus on compelling merchandise that reflect each of its brand’s unique identity. It will streamline operations, control costs and inventories, use innovative marketing, and implement more efficient processes enterprise-wide.

The company has identified its key growth platforms to build its business on going forward that will drive long-term growth, profitability, and enhanced shareholder value.

Shares are up over 10% today at $11.90 in mid-day trading.  Three or four months ago, this news would have probably sent shares south because of low top-line growth.  With a $6.48 to $26.10 trading range over the last year, it looks like the earnings beat will be plenty.  Now it just has to execute this plan.

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 1:49 pm in Apparel,

US Car Sales: Even Toyota (TM) Has A Bad Month

It says a lot when sales of Toyota’s (TM) are actually falling. In March, vehicle sales for the big Japanese company fell 10.3% in the US market to 217,730,

Total passenger car sales fell to 129,778 from 140,009 and light truck sales declined to 77,894 from 91,939. Toyota division sales fell 9.8% to 192,791 vehicles from 213,820, and Lexus division sales fell 14% to 24,939 units from 28,855.

At the same time Ford (F) was saying its Q2 sales could be worse than Q1.

Douglas A. McIntrye

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 12:31 pm in Autos, ,

Apple (AAPL) And RIM (RIMM): A Two-Horse Race In Smartphones

New research out today shows that Research In Motion’s (NASDAQ: RIMM) Blackberry still holds the high ground in the smartphone business, but Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) is marking significant inroads. Palm (NASDAQ: PALM) continues to be in trouble.

The data, from ChangeWave, covers almost 4,000 consumers interview from March 17 to March 24. According to the research the RIM BlackBerry (42%) maintains its huge lead among consumers while second place Palm (16%) continues a two-year decline in its share. This was the seventh-consecutive ChangeWave survey in which Palm’s market share has dropped.

Apple’s share is now up to 9%, extraordinary given the short time the iPhone has been in the market.

In terms of people "very satisfied" with their handsets, Apple lead with a rating of 79%. RIMM comes in at 54% and Palm at 22%. Of those planning to buy a smartphone in the next 90 days, 35% plan to buy the Apple product.

Research In Motion appears to be holding its own is what is a fast-growing market for smartphones. The iPhone continues to be a once-in-generation product. Palm is dead.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 11:32 am in Consumer Electronics, , ,

Blackstone Still Able To Close $10 Billion Funds (BX)

There was an interesting communication from The Blackstone Group, L.P. (NYSE: BX) this morning and the company issued a press release confirming that data. 

Blackstone announced the closing of Blackstone Real Estate Partners VI.  Its total capital commitments are listed as $10.9 Billion. Maybe borrowing money is much tougher from banks that are trying to keep their liquidity and capital ratios from getting too ugly, but this is more than impressive for a capital raise.  It noted that this now makes nine different real estate funds since its inception and this is creating the largest real estate opportunity fund ever raised.

I placed a call into Blackstone for comment on the specifics of the geographic targets of this fund.  Regardless of where it is, closing a $10+ Billion fund in today’s climate is impressive for any geographic region right now.

We frequently discuss restructurings, activist investor trends, IPO’s, back door plays into IPO’s, SPAC’s, spin-offs, and more on our open email distribution list.

Blackstone shares are almost 3% higher today at $16.33 in mid-daytrading.  While this is still a busted IPO of massive proportions,Blackstone shares are more than 20% north of recent lows ($13.40).

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 11:23 am in Private Equity,

Ford (F) Falters

In March, Ford, Lincoln and Mercury sales totaled 213,074, down 14 percent compared with a year ago. Sales to individual retail customers were 17 percent lower than a year ago, with essentially the entire decline concentrated among truck and sport utility vehicles. Ford (NYSE: F)

The car company put all sorts of junk in its press release about it Edge and Focus products, but they did next to nothing to keep the figures from being close to a disaster.

Sales of the Lincoln brand fell 26%. The only question is when they will close it.

The champion of the Ford product line, the F-series trucks, had a decline of 24%.

Stick a fork in it

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 11:13 am in Autos,

Despite Share Sale Withdrawal, Mercadolibre Takes Heat (MELI)

Mercadolibre, Inc. (NASDAQ: MELI) is in a unique spot as it serves an online payment and e-commerce gateway and platform throughout much of Latin America.  The company’s stock is also down close to 50% from the last 90+ days.

Last night, we saw that Mercadolibre (NASDAQ: MELI) had withdrawn its shelf registration statement that would have allowed insiders and the company to sell stock.  On this filing we asked if traders should buy as the company sells.  The reason for the shelf withdrawal was "…on the grounds that the withdrawal of the Registration Statement is in the best interests of the Company’s stockholders and consistent with the public interest and the protection of investors…"

We frequently discuss restructurings, activist investor trends, IPO’s, back door plays into IPO’s, SPAC’s, spin-offs, and more on our open email distribution list.

Interestingly enough, shares are down over 1% today at $39.25 on a day that the U.S. markets are soaring higher.  You’d think this might take off some "added float pressure" normally seen, but the market isn’t treating it that way right now.  This was also one of Jim Cramer’s Latin American internet picks, although at significantly higher prices that went even higher before a monstrous pullback.

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 10:31 am in ADR, Internet, Secondary Offering,

Lazard Maintains Solar Buys (ENER, CSIQ, ESLR)

Lazard Capital Markets analyst Sanjay Shrestha has come out maintaining his Buy recommendation on several names in the alternative energy space.

  • Energy Conversion Devices (NASDAQ: ENER) maintain BUY rating and $40.00 target.  Lazard met with the management team and views it as a one of the best turnaround story in the solar space; after many decades of being an R&D company, it has recently moved towards commercialization and growth under new leadership.  It places a high-$20’s value on Solar operation, and a $12 value on the company’s Ovonics unit. It currently places no value on its COBASYS unit, although it could add value in long-term.
  • Canadian Solar (NASDAQ: CSIQ) was also maintained as a BUY rating with the current $21.24 price being short of the $24.00 price target.
  • Evergreen Solar (NASDAQ: ESLR) was also maintained as a BUY rating with its $9.09 being well short of its $15.00 target.

We have featured several of these alternative energy names in our own "Stocks Under $10" weekly subscriber letter.

We frequently discuss restructurings, activist investor trends, IPO’s, back door plays into IPO’s, SPAC’s, spin-offs, and more on our open email distribution list.

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 9:48 am in Alternative Energy, Analyst Calls, , ,

Frontier Airlines (FRNT) Loses Lift

Shares of Frontier Airlines (FRNT) are off 12% today to $2.23. The shares have a 52-week high of $7.46.

Early this morning the The International Air Transport Association speaking about industry profits said  "This could easily turn into a net loss should the current economic environment deteriorate further," according to the AP. The price of jet fuel is now about $3.50, about double what it was a year ago.

JP Morgan recently cut airline credit ratings to "underweight". Frontier’s traffic was strong in February but probably not strong enough to offset rising costs.

Last quarter, Frontier revenue rose from $261 million in the period a year ago to $322 million. But the company’s operating loss widened to $26 million. Add in interest expense of $9 million.

If revenue begins to fall or fuel prices push up operating losses further Frontier has real problems.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 9:41 am in Airlines,

Politico: The Twenty-Five Most Valuable Blogs

After 24/7 Wall St. published the Twenty-Five Most Valuable Blogs we decided to look at some niche content sites which compete with blogs and should have similar valuation data. One of these content sites is Politico.com which vies for readers with Huffington Post and Drudge. We put Huffington’s value at $70 million and Drudge at $10 million. Huffington’s value was posted at just under 10x revenue and we estimated that the company was slightly profitable.

Compete shows Politico with 1.4 million visitors in February. It is safe to assume that the number should rise though the November election but may fall-off sharply then. Alexa shows a slightly different story. It ranks the site No. 4,053 and shows an audience peak in early February, with some drop-off after that. Quantcast say the site has 1.1 million unique visitors.

Assuming that each visitor represents 2.5 pageviews, Politico would have 3.5 million pageviews a month. Advertising is modest including companies like The New York Times may be sold on a revenue-per-response basis. The site is probably not getting more than a $20 CPM on each page. That would yield an annual revenue run-rate of $840,000 with rapid growth likely over the next six months.

Politico shows about 75 staff members on it masthead. Not all of those people are full-time, but it would not be surprising if half of them got full salaries and benefits. People costs could easily be $2.5 million if the average employee is getting $70,000 including all personnel load. The company clearly has other costs including rent, T&A, communications costs, and website support.

With likely losses, it is hard to give the site a multiple as large as Huffington. At seven times revenue, Politico is worth about $6 million.

Douglas A. McIntyre

   

Read More »

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 9:21 am in Media

JANA Stays After CNET (CNET)

JANA Partners LLC has released a detailed white paper analysis of CNET Networks Inc. (NASDAQ: CNET).  As you can guess, the activist investor group is rather disappointed with CNET.  The groups that JANA has added into its shareholder group hold approximately 14.9% of the voting power in the stock, and JANA’s stake is 5% of the total.

They argue that stopping the destruction of shareholder value at CNET will require fundamental strategic and operational change.  Jana notes that implementing this change will require the type of experience and expertise it believes the Board nominees the group has proposed would add to CNET’s Board of Directors. 

JANA has noted that the performance of the current board of directors has presided over the loss of more than half of CNET’s market value since a majority of current directors have been in place.  CNET’s shares declined by -21%, -52%, and -25% in the one, two and three year periods ended March 28, 2008.  It also wants the board to explain why shareholders would not benefit from Jana’s proposed changes.

JANA addresses its rejection of CNET’s offer of one of the seven board seats the group is seeking.  It feels this would not bring the level of change needed at CNET.  There are many other criticisms.  CNET has failed to turn these assets into shareholder value and its own review was only initiated after outside pressure mounted. CNET has not taken necessary changes to protect the value of its strongest assets, instead expanding into new verticals. CNET needs comprehensive strategic and operational change to strengthen its core businesses and adapting to the modern Internet.  The group wants new leadership to create significant new value for shareholders.

JANA has joined with Sandell Asset Management Corp., Paul Gardi of Alex Interactive Media, Spark Capital and Velocity Interactive Group in seeking to elect two individuals to replace the board members who are up
for re-election and to expand CNET’s board by five members and nominate individuals to fill those vacancies.

We frequently discuss restructurings, activist investor trends, IPO’s, back door plays into IPO’s, SPAC’s, spin-offs, and more on our open email distribution list.  We also just covered CNET on our weekly "10 Stocks Under $10" subscriber letter yesterday.  We aren’t quite as optimistic on the instant value creation, but JANA’s approach is one of long-term changes rather than short-term shareholder rewards at the expense of the long-haul.

More detailed information can be found on this particular situation at www.JANAGroupInfo.com.

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 9:11 am in Activist Investor, Internet,

SPAC Stock/Warrant Separation: BPW Acquisition Corp. (BPW.U, BPW.WS, BPW)

BPW Acquisition Corp. (AMEX: BPW.U) is another one of these special purpose acquisition companies ("SPAC") that came public in recent weeks.  The SPAC has announced that, starting today, April 1, 2008, its unit-holders from its initial public offering completed on March 3, 2008, may now elect to separately trade the common stock and warrants included in the units.  Those units not separated will continue to trade on the AMEX under the symbol "BPW.U", and each of the common stock and warrants will trade on the American Stock Exchange under the symbol "BPW" and "BPW.WS", respectively.

We frequently discuss IPO’s, back door plays into IPO’s, SPAC’s, spin-offs, and more on our open email distribution list.

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 8:11 am in IPOs, , ,

IPO FILING: BioTrove, Inc. (BTRV)

A company called BioTrove, Inc. has filed to come public via an initial public offering this morning.  It has applied to take the proposed ticker of "BTRV" on NASDAQ.

BioTrove has filed to sell up to $75 million in securities for filing purposes, although no share count nor pricing range has been indicated.  Underwriters are listed as Piper Jaffray, Lazard Capital Markets, and Robert W. Baird.

BioTrove develops, manufactures and markets instruments and consumables for genomic analysis, high throughput screening, and for molecular diagnostics. Its two marketed systems, OpenArray and RapidFire, accelerate R&D and commercial progress across multiple fields, including drug discovery. agricultural science, food and water supply safety, and molecular diagnostics.  It claims a company customer list of 20 biopharmaceuticals for its RapidFire, including 11 of the 15 largest based on global sales.  Total service and product revenues were listed as $4.783 million for fiscal Dec-2007.

We frequently discuss IPO’s, back door plays into IPO’s, spin-offs, and more on our open email distribution list.

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 8:00 am in Biotech, IPOs,

Parts Merger: O’Reilly Automotive Buys CSK Auto (ORLY, CAO)

O’Reilly Automotive, Inc. (NASDAQ: ORLY) has announced that it and CSK Auto Corporation (NYSE: CAO) have signed a definitive merger agreement.

O’Reilly will acquire CSK in a transaction valued at approximately $1 Billion, after the inclusion of approximately $500 million of debt.  CSK shareholders will receive $11.00 in payment via O’Reilly common stock, on terms subject to a price collar, and will receive $1.00 in cash for each share of CSK.

Based on an exchange ratio equal to $11.00 divided by the average trading price of O’Reilly common stock will be based upon the five trading days ending two trading days prior to the consummation of the exchange offer plus $1.00.  If the average trading price of O’Reilly stock is above than $29.95, then the exchange ratio will equal 0.3673; and if the average trading price is less than $25.67, then the exchange ratio shall equal 0.4285.

O’Reilly said this will be modestly accretive to O’Reilly’s earnings per share in fiscal year 2009, and the cost savings are expected to be approximately $100 million annually beginning in fiscal year 2010.  O’Reilly has a commitment for $1.2 billion in asset based revolving credit with Bank of America and Lehman Brothers Inc.

The boards of directors of both companies have already approved the transaction.

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008

Jon Ogg produces the Special Situation Investing Newsletter and he can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 7:47 am in Autos, Mergers and Buy Outs, ,

IPO Filing: Energy Recovery Inc.; A Desalination Play (ERII)

Energy Recovery, Inc. has filed to come public via an initial public offering.  The company lists that it will sell up to $175 million in stock in the offering, although that is merely for filing purposes and no shares count nor price range has been indicated.  Energy Recovery has applied to take the ticker "ERII" on NASDAQ.  Citigroup and Credit Suisse were listed as joint book-runners or co-leads on it.

The company is a developer and manufacturer of efficient energy recovery devices utilized in the rapidly growing water desalination industry.  It operates primarily in the sea water reverse osmosis segment of the industry.

In the process, high pressure is used to drive sea water through filtering membranes to produce fresh water.  Its primary product, the PX Pressure Exchanger, helps optimize the energy intensive process by recapturing and recycling up to 98% of the energy in the high pressure reject stream, thereby reducing energy consumption by an estimated 60% as compared to the same process without any energy recovery devices.

It has also noted its system deliveries.  Energy Recovery estimated that its devices shipped as of December 31, 2007 reduce electricity consumption in desalination plants by approximately 300 megawatts relative to comparable plants with no energy recovery devices. Assuming a rate of $0.08 per kilowatt-hour, this would result in annual electricity cost savings of approximately $210 million in the aggregate, which would equate to a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions of approximately 1.5 million tons per year.

As of December 31, 2007, it noted having over 4,000 PX devices shipped to desalination plants worldwide, in locations such as China, Europe, India, Australia, Africa, the Middle East, North America and the Caribbean.  Net revenues have grown from $4.0 million in 2003 to $35.4 million in 2007.

We frequently discuss IPO’s, back door plays into IPO’s, spin-offs, and more on our open email distribution list.

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 7:32 am in Alternative Energy, IPOs, Water,

Richard Branson & Google Shoot for Mars (GOOG)

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has recently been under fire from critics over its side-operations in going green and its own space-race.  It isn’t the coolness factor that is the issue, but the falling share prices mixed with the slowing economy and lower click-thru’s on banner ads and AdSense are causing critics to think "Tell them to worry about that other stuff in 2010."

This morning the company has discussed on its official Google blog the launch Project Virgile.  This is Richard Branson’s Virgin and Google teaming up for the establishment of a permanent human settlement on Mars.   Branson noted in the post, "In the years to come, we’ll be sending up a series of spaceships carrying (along with the supplies and tools needed to build the new colony) what eventually will be hundreds of Mars colonists, or Virgle Pioneers — myself among them."

Branson also says, "Larry Page, Sergey Brin and I feel strongly that contemporary technology is sufficiently advanced to make such an effort both successful and economical, and that it’s high time that humanity moved beyond Earth and began our great, long journey to explore the stars and establish our first lasting foothold on another world."

None of this lacks any cool factor.  But this effort is going to be yet another side show as the economy slide and as the stock is under pressure.  This won’t cool any heated words over the distraction over day to day operations.

Jon C. Ogg
April 1, 2008 (is there an April Fool’s joke in play here?)

Posted on: April 1, 2008 – 7:10 am in Uncategorized,