CREE mit Aktiensplit 2:1 Anfang Dezember - 500 Beiträge pro Seite

[LloydWebber]

Cree, Inc. Announces Two-For-One Stock Split

DURHAM, N.C., Oct. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE) today announced that its Board of Directors has approved a two-for-one stock split. The record date for the stock split will be December 1, 2000. Certificates representing the additional shares will be distributed on or about December 8, 2000. The Company expects its common stock to begin trading on a post-split basis on December 11, 2000.

Shareholders of record at the close of business on December 1, 2000 will be issued a certificate representing one additional share of common stock for each share of common stock then held. The stock split will be effected through an amendment of the articles of incorporation not requiring shareholder approval. The number of shares of common stock outstanding will increase to approximately 71.4 million as a result of the split.

[LloydWebber]

Cree ist in den letzten Tagen um ca. 25% gestiegen. Bei den letzten beiden Anstiegen ging`s dann noch weiter bis ca. 150€ bzw. 135/140$. Was meint ihr, diemal auch?

[LloydWebber]

Hallo? Jemand zuhause (außer mir)?
Jedenfalls Cree mit schönem Wochenschluss. Endspurt der letzten 1,5 Stunden brachte +9% auf $119.75.

Ciao, Euer Lloyd

[LloydWebber]

Mist! Wieder zu früh gekauft (vor ein paar Tagen bei 90€). Heute bei 65€!
War folgende Meldung schuld?


Cree, Inc. to Acquire UltraRF Semiconductor Division of Spectrian Corporation

Cree Establishes Broad RF Power Technology Platform

DURHAM, N.C., Nov. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Cree, Inc. (Nasdaq: CREE) today announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire UltraRF, a division of Spectrian Corporation (Nasdaq: SPCT) of Sunnyvale, California through an asset purchase transaction. UltraRF designs, manufactures and markets a complete line LDMOS and bipolar radio frequency (RF) power semiconductors, the critical component utilized in building power amplifiers for wireless infrastructure. The combination of UltraRF`s LDMOS technology with Cree`s silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) capability establishes Cree as the broadest supplier of RF power technology.

Under the terms of the agreement, Cree will purchase UltraRF assets and assume certain of its liabilities in exchange for approximately 908,000 shares of Cree common stock and $30 million cash, or at Cree`s option, additional Cree shares worth $30 million. Cree believes the acquisition will be accretive to earnings per share before goodwill. It will be accounted for as a purchase transaction under accounting guidelines. The parties anticipate that the acquisition, which is subject to regulatory approval, environmental and other due diligence, and other customary conditions, will close in late December 2000 or January 2001. In addition, as part of the acquisition, Cree will sign, at closing, a two-year supply agreement with Spectrian whereby Spectrian will purchase semiconductor products from Cree. Cree and Spectrian will also enter into a one-year joint agreement for development of laterally diffused metal oxide semiconductors (LDMOS), high linearity and gain driver modules, high efficiency LDMOS power modules, and SiC MESFET components.

Cree and UltraRF plan to combine the strength of the two companies by leveraging UltraRF`s packaging and distribution channels and LDMOS and bipolar transistor technologies expertise with Cree`s demonstrated performance with SiC and GaN products and materials. This provides Cree with a unique combination of technology bases in the RF and microwave transistor market. This acquisition will enable immediate revenue-producing applications for RF products and provide Cree with additional design, packaging and distribution channels necessary for SiC and GaN-based devices.

Neal Hunter, Chairman and CEO of Cree stated, "We are extremely excited about the acquisition of UltraRF. The LDMOS technology offered today by UltraRF provides the solution in the 0.8 to 2.4 GHz range for wireless infrastructure. As we focus on the emerging opportunities operating at frequencies above 2 GHz and the build-out of third and future generations of wireless infrastructure, we believe that LDMOS technology, combined with Cree`s demonstrated SiC and GaN RF products, could provide a total solution for applications above 2 GHz. The single most critical and expensive component to broadband wireless infrastructure is the RF device that amplifies a high frequency signal to higher power levels. By incorporating LDMOS, SiC and GaN device technologies, Cree will be the first company to offer a complete suite of products that aims to significantly reduce the cost and increase the performance characteristics of available devices."

Cree intends to leverage UltraRF`s relationships with key wireless infrastructure companies and providers and enable the company to increase its distribution channels with a broader base of products. Cree expects the acquisition, once completed, to accelerate customer acceptance of its SiC and GaN technology, which offer higher power densities and broader band capability.

Chris Tubis, President of UltraRF commented, "UltraRF`s LDMOS product offerings complement Cree`s existing SiC and GaN RF products by providing a full range of solutions that can handle a broad range of frequencies. We will now be uniquely positioned to address the demanding needs of UMTS (universal mobile telephone service) and WCDMA (wideband code division multiple access). As the build-out of the 3G network gets underway, we anticipate that LDMOS, SiC and GaN will play a much larger and crucial role in that environment."

The November 2000 issue of The Huber Mills, Digital Power Report, published by Gilder Publishing, stated, "The high-power LDMOS market hardly existed four years ago. Today, it accounts for roughly 50 percent of total sales of high-end RF powerchips. At the critical emerging 2 GHz frequency, UltraRF stands essentially alone today as a third player... The market is still very young -- still wide open for superior designs to emerge and dominate."

Based in Sunnyvale, California, UltraRF offers the industry`s only independent source of high-power, high-performance LDMOS power semiconductors for the infrastructure marketplace, which are critical enabling components in the design and manufacture of the second and third generation wireless infrastructure equipment. UltraRF offers a full line of bipolar and LDMOS devices at power levels from 10 watts to over 1000 watts (pulse radar) with the highest power density available today.

Cree, Inc. will host a conference call at 11:00 a.m. EST today to review the details of the acquisition announcement. The conference call will be available to all interested parties through a live audio web broadcast via the Internet. Log onto our website at www.cree.com and go to "Investor Info" for webcast details. The call will be archived and available on the website for one week ending at 5:00 p.m., EST, November 28th. A telephone replay of the call will also be available one hour after the call, Tuesday, November 21st, and ending 5:00 p.m., EST, November 28th. Please call 800-625-5288 (domestic) or 303-804-1855 (international) and use Reservation No. 868034 to listen to the replay.

[LloydWebber]

Jetzt seh` ich`s erst: Die Meldung war schon vom 21.11...

[Ken_meyer]

meine Vermutung ist eher, dass wir einen sich selbst
verstärkenden Dominoeffekt am Markt haben. Der Nasi
geht wahrscheinlich in nächster Zeit auch noch locker
bis 2000. Da kann Cree noch so gut aussehen.
Ein KGV von um die 65 kann in den nächsten Monaten
noch richtig unanständig aussehen...

Ich würde sie ja auch gerne kaufen, aber zur Zeit
schaut mir das wirklich nicht gut aus ( ausser vielleicht
für trader )

[Frank.Frechdax]

Hallo Freunde,

ich glaube eher das der nachfolgende Artikel Schuld an dem Kurssturz von Cree hat. Und wenn die Behauptungen stimmen, dann sollten wir noch viel tiefere Kurse in Cree sehen, leider.

Aus: TheSTreet.com

Does One Hand Wash the Other With Cree and Friends?
By Herb Greenberg
Senior Columnist
Originally posted at 6:31 AM ET 11/29/00 on RealMoney.com

So, Banc of America Securities came out Tuesday and shaved this year`s earnings estimates on Cree Research (CREE:Nasdaq - news) by a nickel, and the stock tumbled 14%. The reason: weakness at rival Toyoda Gosei in Japan, which makes LED chips that are brighter than Cree`s.

But is that really Cree`s biggest problem?

Let`s just say that`s not why short-sellers find Cree so appealing. "What I see at Cree reminds me a lot of what I first saw at Lernout & Hauspie (LHSP:Nasdaq - news)," says Marc Cohodes of Rocker Partners, who is referring to Cree`s web of related-party and not-quite-arm`s-length transactions. (Rocker Partners holds a 5.2% stake in TheStreet.com, according to SEC filings.)

Cohodes, who is short Cree, is best known to readers of this column for raising red flags on Lernout; he was recently quoted here as mentioning Cree as one of several stocks on his current hit list, without a "why." The "why" is those related-party transactions. They`re always reason for concern, no matter how well they`re disclosed, because on the one hand, they simply don`t look good and always are suspicious; on the other hand, they can easily lead to overstating revenue or understating expenses.

Both appear to be the case at Cree, a maker of LED chips, which was first mentioned here in July 1999 for its too-close-for-comfort relationship with fake diamond maker C3, now called Charles & Colvard (CTHR:Nasdaq - news). Not only is C3`s then-CEO Jeff Hunter the brother of Cree CEO Neal Hunter, and not only was Cree a big C3 investor, but Cree had a multiyear deal to sell crystals to C3. (What`s more, Eric Hunter, another brother, was the founder and largest holder of C3.)

C3 is now stuffed with around four years` worth of inventory from Cree. Four years! If you didn`t know better you`d think C3, whose business has subsequently done horribly, was created for the sole reason of becoming a customer of Cree.

Ah, but not to worry: Cree now says that C3, which once accounted for as much as 20% of Cree`s sales, is no longer an important customer. And according to C3`s proxy, Eric Hunter is not longer a C3 investor, but guess what! He has started a new company called World Theater.

One of World`s biggest investors, taking $5 million of a $19 million offering, is none other than (You guessed it!) Cree. According to World`s private placement memorandum, World plans to construct an "On-Demand Electronic Billboard Network."

Well (and this is where it starts to get interesting), not far from Cree`s headquarters in Durham, N.C., is the U.S. headquarters of Lighthouse Technologies, which was known as Real Color Displays when it was a subsidiary of Cree. Lighthouse has the same management and many of the same employees as it did when it was part of Cree. While they`re no longer directly related, however, Lighthouse appears to remain a Cree customer. Cree, in fact, boasted that its chips were used in Lighthouse`s big screens at the Republican National Convention.

What does that have to do with World? World is a potential indirect customer of Cree via Lighthouse, because Lighthouse makes screens that would be used in any electronic billboard network. A Lighthouse official told me that World has already bought several screens from Lighthouse for demonstration purposes. (Still with me?) World officials couldn`t be reached.

Then there`s Cree`s relationship with Microvision (MVIS:Nasdaq - news), which makes scanning technology. Over the past two years, Cree has invested $17 million into Microvision. Microvision, in turn, has agreed to spend $12.6 million (Gee, wonder where they got it!) to fund research with Cree.

That spending by Microvision directly offsets, or lowers, Cree`s research and development costs. Last year alone, Cree says that Microvision`s payments lowered Cree`s R&D expenses by $3.1 million. (Put another way, if those R&D expenses had been shouldered by Cree, its fiscal year 2000 operating income would have been about 8% lower, and earnings per share would have come in 3 cents lighter than analysts` expectations.)

Cree has similar development agreements with Xemod, in which it has invested $11.3 million, and Spectrian (SPCT:Nasdaq - news), whose UltraRF unit Cree is buying. Cree hasn`t, however, disclosed dollar amounts of those develoment agreements. And speaking of Spectrian, it has two divisions, the Amplifier division and UltraRF. UltraRF, it turns out, has virtually one customer: Spectrian`s Amplifier division, and as part of the takeover, Spectrian will continue to purchase chips from UltraRF for two years.

Does the UltraRF deal require Spectrian to purchase a specific amount of chips, as did the agreement with C3? Will the UltraRF and Xemod development agreements offset Cree`s R&D expenses? In the cases of Microvision and Spectrian, isn`t Cree merely taking money off its balance sheet, handing it over to another company, and having it come back, one way or the other, into its income statement? If not, why? And why shouldn`t Cree investors be concerned about its related party transactions?

I asked some of those questions, and a few more, to Cree`s execs in a written email (after they didn`t return my call of last Wednesday). Their response (I kid you not!): Go read the 10-Qs and 10-Ks. "We believe these appropriately disclose our historical transactions," a spokeswoman said. And as for the UltraRF deal, she suggested I read the press release.

Well, I did and did ... and did, and still couldn`t find the answers to my questions.

Your move. (With Cree`s stock trading at around 45 times next year`s expected earnings, it had better be a good one.)

So long...
Frechdax

[Kitty2]

@Hallo Frechdax

Die Investor Relation bezeichnet den Artikel mit "Alles Lüge" und zusammengesponnen.

Mal sehn ob Fred Hager morgen Stellung zu dem Thema nimmt.

mfg kitty2

[LloydWebber]

Oje, das klingt nicht so richtig gut. Aber illegal klingt es auch nicht. Ich würde mal ketzerisch fragen: Wird das so nicht überall gemacht?

[LloydWebber]

Split ist vollzogen!