|
|
Enron Mail |
_________________________________________________________________
B R E A K F A S T W I T H T H E F O O L Monday, November 20, 2000 benjamin.rogers@enron.com _________________________________________________________________ REGISTER TO BECOME A FOOL -- GET FREE STUFF! http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203072 _________________________________________________________________ Sponsored By: Wells Fargo Do your business banking online, anytime, anywhere. See balances, move funds, track deposits, and get 24/7 customer service. Get more time for your life with business online banking! http://www.lnksrv.com/m.asp?i=203073 "Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things." -- Robert Louis Stevenson COKE MAY BE SOWING OATS Coke makes $16 billion bid for Quaker Oats and its Gatorade brand. By Tom Jacobs Reuters reports that soft drink giant Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) has offered $16 billion for Quaker Oats Co. (NYSE: OAT), eyeing its powerful Gatorade brand sports drink. Coke's offer tops PepsiCo's (NYSE: PEP) $14.8 billion proposed purchase, which Quaker rebuffed earlier this month. Coke is believed to be offering 1.9 shares per Quaker share, or about $116.70. France's Groupe Danone (NYSE: DA) has reportedly made an offer as well, and the Quaker board is probably prepared to hear from PepsiCo again -- or even another possible suitor, such as Nestle. Coke is currently trying to regain investor confidence after shaky times. The deal would give Coke a lock on the sport drink market, which Quaker's Gatorade currently dominates with an 84% market share, compared to 11% held by Coke's PowerAde and 3.1% for PepsiCo's All-Sport. Industry analysts note that the non-carbonated beverage market is growing faster than the bubbly kind, and Gatorade is the solid-gold brand. The appeal of the Gatorade label explains why other suitors may appear once they know Gatorade's in play. But any buyer would have to deal with Quaker's cereal business, and there's only so much you can do with oats after you toast them or sugar them up in breakfast bars. Any deal for Quaker would join a gaggle of recent food world acquisitions: Philip Morris (NYSE: MO) purchased Nabisco Holdings (NYSE: NGH) in June; Unilever -- Anglo-Dutch parent of Unilever PLC (NYSE: UL) and Unilever N.V. (NYSE: UN) -- acquired Bestfoods Oct. 5; and Keebler Foods Co. (NYSE: KBL) combined with Kellogg Co. (NYSE: K) on Oct. 26. Coke closed Friday at $61.83, down $0.50, while Quaker finished off $0.19 to $90.31, just shy of its 52-week high of $92. Quaker has jumped 13% since its suitors appeared, while Coke stock currently sells for 1997 prices. _________________________________________________________________ NEWS TO GO Agilent Technologies (NYSE: A) is selling its medical products business to Dutch electronics whiz Philips Electronics for $1.7 billion, capping Philips' two-year, $4 billion buying spree in the industry. The deal leaves Philips the number three medical equipment maker, behind General Electric (NYSE: GE) and Siemens. This is an interesting move for Agilent, which apparently views its dragging medical equipment business separately from its booming life science manufacturing biz, growing through partnerships with such biotechs as Caliper Technologies (Nasdaq: CALP) and Rosetta Inpharmatics (Nasdaq: RSTA). Programmable logic company Xilinx (Nasdaq: XLNX) won its seven-year-old patent infringement suit Friday against competitor Altera (Nasdaq: ALTR) and said it would seek an immediate injunction against the loser. Back atcha, Altera promised an immediate appeal of the jury verdict. Altera sought to minimize the damage, asserting that the verdict covers only Flex 8000 product sales, representing just 2%, or $30 million, of its annual revenues. Xilinx is a favorite of telecom guru George Gilder. Alas, still darker days for Sunbeam (NYSE: SOC). The Securities and Exchange Commission has recommended enforcement action against the company and individual officers -- including former Chairman and CEO "Chainsaw" Al Dunlap -- for alleged accounting irregularities that created a sunny picture of actual cloudy days for the camping goods and appliance manufacturer. Sunbeam limped home Friday to $0.68. Online auto dealer Autoweb.com (Nasdaq: AWEB) is laying off 25% of its staff in an effort to save $10 million a year and become profitable. The company's difficulty in attracting buyers to online car showrooms joins priceline.com's (Nasdaq: PCLN) similar woes. Autoweb's chart since its March 1999 IPO is an emblem for the dot-com debacle. The company squeaked home to $0.53 on Friday, a true penny stock. http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203074 _________________________________________________________________ EDITORS' PICK If you're confused by the abundance of wireless and mobile products, then our Wireless Buyer's Guide is just what you need. http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203075 _______________________________________________________________ -News & Commentary http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203076 -Fool Community http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203077 -Post of the Day http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203078 -Latest Fribble http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203079 -Latest Market Numbers http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203080 ____________________________________________________________ My Portfolio: http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203081 My Discussion Boards: http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203082 My Fool: http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203083 Fool.com Home: http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203084 My E-Mail Settings: http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203085 Sponsored By: Wells Fargo Do your business banking online, anytime, anywhere. See balances, move funds, track deposits, and get 24/7 customer service. Get more time for your life with business online banking! http://www.lnksrv.com/m.asp?i=203086 17 INDUSTRIES WORTH A LOOK See which industries our writers think will be hot next year with Industry Focus 2001. http://www.lnksrv.com/m.asp?i=203087 ARE YOU ENROLLED IN WIRELESS 201? Don't miss the sequel to the best-selling report on Soapbox.com http://www.lnksrv.com/m.asp?i=203088 FOOL DIRECT E-MAIL SERVICES Need to change your address or unsubscribe? You can also temporarily suspend mail delivery. Click here: http://www.fool.com/community/freemail/freemaillogin.asp?email=benjamin.rogers @enron.com< Have ideas about how we can improve the Fool Direct or new e-mail products you'd like to see? Try our discussion board: http://www.fool.com/m.asp?i=203089 ____________________________________________________ © Copyright 2000, The Motley Fool. All rights reserved. This material is for personal use only. Republication and redissemination, including posting to news groups, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of The Motley Fool. . MsgId: msg-7857-2000-11-20_9-18-20-3350075_2_Plain_MessageAddress.msg-09:23:12(11-20- 2000) X-Version: mailer-sender-master,v 1.84 X-Version: mailer-sender-daemon,v 1.84 Message-Recipient: benjamin.rogers@enron.com
|