von einem US board entnommen (nicht iHub) bzgl. jüngster gerüchte!
==========================================
Some of the Bond holders who own secured bonds with a 2nd LIEN on EK's assets have been AGAIN spreading BS rumors.
In my opinion, LAZARD is very close to finishing the PROCESS of selling the EK digital patents.
I have MULTIPLE reasons for my conclusions:
1) At an EK Town Hall meeting on Wed. Sept 28th, EK said that the first round of bids were expected around the middle of Oct.
2)EK always issues 3rd quarter earnings the last week of Oct..... EXCEPT this year they moved that back 1 week to Nov. 3. This indicates that the timeline for the sale PROCESS is for a deal to be signed the last days of Oct., and EK wants to have their earnings call AFTER the patent sale has been announced.
3) The filing of the Law suit by Fujifilm indicates that they learned from Lazard, that their bid for the EK digital patents was greatly exceeded by others.
4) The sale PROCESS run by LAZARD is similar to that for an ART auction, except with more details and a longer amount of time. In an art auction, a date is announced which gives plenty of time for the buyers experts to fully examine the art.
Once the actual auction starts it moves relatively quickly, after the initial formalities.
In a LAZARD run PROCESS, the first round of bids essentially separates out the REAL serious bidders from all the rest.
Then the major bidders are given another week or so to submit their next round of bids. Then the rest of the rounds are usually concluded over the next few days.
Then the winning bidder or consortium of bidders, and the seller must draw up the final papers.
Then Boards of both companies must sign off on the deal.
I EXPECT:
1)The subsequent rounds of the EK digital image patents to be concluded by early next week.
2)The deal details to be completed by the legal teams by late next week.
3) The Boards of both companies to sign off on the deal by Oct. 31.
4) The announcement of the deal by Nov. 1st
I do NOT have any inside info, and I am ONLY relying on the public info that I disclosed above, and my general knowledge of how a corporate sale process is run by a top M & A firm such as LAZARD.
I believe the bidding for these patents will be FEROCIOUS between APPLE and the GOOGLE/Android consortium, which includes Samsung,LG,HTC, and Intel.
Microsoft is also a VERY serious bidder, but they may NOT be allowed to join with Apple as they did in the Nortel deal.
EACH of the 3 major bidders, has over $50 BILLION in cash.
NONE of the EK digital image patents are FRAND encumbered, unlike the Nortel patents.
For this reason, I believe that the EK digital image patents are worth MORE as strategic weapons than the Nortel patents.
THEREFORE, I expect the EK digital image patents will sell for more than $ 4.5 BILLION.
EACH of the 3 bidders can easily pay $5 BILLION for the EK digital patents, BECAUSE they are FOUNDATIONAL and can be used to stop a competitor from selling their product.
Steve Jobs vowed a couple years ago to use ALL the $40 Billion in cash to KILL ANDROID.
Now APPLE has over $81 BILLION in cash!!!!
The GOOGLE/ANDROID consortium will test Apple to see if they will still bid aggressively in a POST JOBS era.
MSFT will ALSO be bidding aggressively since Bill Gates has already shown his interest in controlling the EK digital image patents because of his purchase of 4.9% of EK at $6/share.
If I am correct, then EK stock will trade up to over $10/share within a few days of the patent sale announcement.
DO NOT let the MANIPULATIVE RUMOR mongers convince you to sell your shares before the patent sale announcement.