BayStar Sets Lawyers on SCO 377
myster0n writes "According to The Register: 'SCO's attempts to rescue its relationship with BayStar, its biggest backer, have come to naught. On Friday morning, Eastern time, SCO announced that the stock buyback deal it agreed with the unhappy investor had closed. Two hours and five minutes later, Baystar issued a statement saying that a) no it hadn't and b) we'll see you in court, matey.'" Thanks to The Reg for the write-up.
The real conclusion... (Score:5, Insightful)
Pains (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing for SCO to fret about... (Score:5, Insightful)
Another lovely day on the slopes... (Score:5, Insightful)
SCO Confused? (Score:2, Insightful)
SCO maintains that it has been a paragon of virtue and transparency throughout
Maybe a paragon of Corporate Virtue and Transparency . . . an oxymoronic (or simply moronic) statement in itself. But most definitely that group has been anything BUT virtuous or transparent.
Come on, people ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:My favorite part (Score:3, Insightful)
What an abysmal state to be in (Score:5, Insightful)
Looking at their quarterly income and cash flow statements, one can only draw one conclusion; SCO will be out of cash in roughly three to four quarters without a significant cash injection from an interested party.
Their stock price sucks, their product sucks, their management sucks, and they have NO customer good will. They have no prospects for income and roughly $60M in cash. At $12M+ losses per quarter, they will barely make it to the close of FY05.
I would hate to work there.
NOT GOOD at all......... (Score:5, Insightful)
BayStar ABSOLUTELY MUST do this! Otherwise, IBM and the others will be able to get the information about the link to Microsoft (read the Halloween Memos if you don't know what I'm talking about). They ONLY way to keep that information secret (and protect Bill) is to get it wrapped up in a lawsuit with "confidential" terms and a confidentiality agreement.
This has NOTHING to do with getting back the money they were instructed to channel to SCO.
So while we are all sitting around laughing at SCOX Baystar is definitely pulling a fast one to COVER THEIR investor's ASS(ETS).
Short. (Score:2, Insightful)
SCO not only just killed themselves, but they ensured a VERY steep decline. Baystar did this just right, issuing a press release on a Thursday. It ensures a huge drop today.
Since its founding in 1998, BayStar has never before sent a letter to a company seeking its money back, as it has with SCO.
SCO's stock price, which fell 38 cents yesterday to $6.80 a share, has dropped 30 percent since last Thursday, the day BayStar sent its redemption letter.
"Keep riding" for those that got on early.
Re:What an abysmal state to be in (Score:5, Insightful)
Good. (Score:3, Insightful)
One statement says it all (Score:3, Insightful)
Really given SCO's history of statements, does this come as surprise to BayStar?
It's sorta like on Springer when a wronged boyfiend/girlfriend/spouse comes on to complain how their partner has cheated on them. It's ironic though if the guilty party says something like "Babe, how do you think we met? I was cheating on so and so with you! Babe, you knew how I was before we started dating."
I pray that Darl doesn't wind up on Springer wearing a wife-beater. The usual pattern is that by the end of the show he's stripped down to nothing. [shudders]
Dogs-Fleas (Score:3, Insightful)
If you lie down with dogs, you might wake up with fleas.
Re:Google to buy SCO after IPO? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:NOT GOOD at all......... (Score:3, Insightful)
Zounds, that must be the trick the bounders are pulling. I mean it was only because the Halloween documents came tagged with 'press release' that we actually saw them.
"This has NOTHING to do with getting back the money they were instructed to channel to SCO."
Well, there you're right. It's the difference between what SCO said they were doing and what SCO actually did coupled with what SCO told Baystar compared with what they claimed in teleconference.
As for 'instructed', I take it that you've had limited exposure to venture capital?
Re:My favorite part (Score:3, Insightful)
I love that one. Everything we said in public and in private is true -- even though they are contradictory.
SCO must protect the confidential "IP" in the documents, and therefore cannot let Baystar see the documents. After all, Baystar might discover SCO's proprietary trade secret business model of saying one thing to the press and to prospective investors; but saying something else in court filings and SEC filings.
We should cheer for SCO on this one (Score:1, Insightful)
Baystar are the people who funded this whole debacle, and I'd like to see them spanked hard. The only way to do that is if they lost their *ENTIRE* stake in this dubious venture.
People, vote for SCO in this one. Suck Baystar dry.
SCO should've taken more precautions. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Baystar is canadian. (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, as that's one of the signs of the Apocalypse, I think we'll all have bigger things to worry about.
Seriously - wondering "what if SCO is right?" is like wondering "what will I do if monkeys fly out of my butt?" After all, you've never had monkeys fly out of your butt before, so therefore the longer you go without having monkeys fly out of your butt, the greater the chance that they eventually will, right?
the length this has drawn out does make one wonder.
The length of time is simply a demonstration of how long someone can game the system. Why not simply ask "why has this drawn out so long, and SCO has yet to produce a single shred of evidence to support their claims?"
Re:My favorite part (Score:3, Insightful)
The thing that really gets me about that one is that the two million or so shares Baystar is due represents about 1/6th of SCO's outstanding shares. So SCO is basically saying it needs to keep "proprietary data" secret from the people who own over 15% of their company. How the hell does THAT make any kind of sense?
No, Microsoft would not do that (Score:3, Insightful)
The end still won't be good... (Score:1, Insightful)
That's right, after all the lying and cheating he will walk away... When he should be in jail.. All because when big businesses make pulic claims they are just "stating their opinion" and aren't held accountable for what they proclaim.
Re:One could interpret this... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, there's the risk that: 1)the GPL gets validated in court; and 2)Linux is legally declared unencumbered by patent/copyright violations. Also, OSS projects may be reevaluated by companies that were waiting for the legal dust to settle.
BTW, doesn't IBM have a regiment of lawyers on the payroll anyway? If so, I doubt their pay would be different depending on whether they're filing court papers or surfing the Internet.
Re:Another lovely day on the slopes... (Score:2, Insightful)
However, I think that the OP was simply trying to say that at a given dollar delta, the dollar amount of upside and downside risks are asymmetric. Although equity markets generally have a pronounced negative skew, it is still true that returns look much more geometric than arithmetic. The dollar amount of a 95% likelihood up move will be larger than the dollar amount of the same likelihood down move.
In the case of your example, in order to target a return of 1M, you need to estimate an outcome: your estimate was $0.01 -> 0. However, the likelihood of a price rise to say $0.03 might be just as great; in that case you have risked 3M to make 1M.
Finally, there are special hazards to shorting, particularly for the retail investor. Generally you must put up more collateral than would be needed to go long the same position, and usually you are paid an inferior rate on that collateral. There is also the problem of getting there from here: even if you are ultimately right, a price rise from 0.01 to 0.02 might result in margin calls that oblige you to close your position.