Francis Gaskins Quotations

People will just walk away if they don't have a healthy income statement.

On the face of it, it looks like it should be shorted -- not bought. It's the most arbitrary pricing I've ever seen.

I would be surprised if there were significant appreciation. Whatever the premium is, three or four points ... because 85 percent of the company is still going to be coming, there is not much they can do to please the public on the upside.

I would expect this offering to be oversubscribed and (the price range) raised,

If they're profitable, they could go public. The question is, if they want to.

If the business model doesn't work out, then it's bye-bye, Software.net.

I think AOL took these guys to the cleaners,

It doesn't deserve to be public, and wouldn't have a chance if Peapod weren't already out there,

As the price of oil goes higher, the demand for their service increases. It opens up new areas of supply for them.

Eden has a product that's really neat. Like a number of companies (going public) now, they have a product that's just introduced and is coming out of beta testing or is ready for prime time.

Some people would say Software.net looks suspiciously like the record business, but there is no customer loyalty in software; it's all about price.

This is an odd beast overall. There's a lot going against it.

They need to grow their customer base, ... They had a nice compound growth rate until you compare the March 1998 quarter with the March 1997 quarter. March 1998 sales are flat with the year-ago quarter. That's not a good sign in an intensely competitive industry.

They have high-quality natural gas there, and it's just in the right place at the right time.

They get two-thirds of their revenue from the aftermarket, which is a recurring revenue stream. They have visible recurring revenue over the 30-year life of these aircraft.

They do production drilling. In the U.S. and Canada, when the price of oil goes up, it increases demand for their services.

You don't see that in a company that's focused on internal growth.

They're in a hot area and they're selling to top customers. Anyone is hot that sells to broadband markets.

They're in a brutally competitive market. I'm not going to buy anybody that's not a market leader. They say they're going to grow by acquisitions, but I don't know how many little niche companies are out there that they can grow.

They really busted into the big leagues. And accessing Web accounts over the phone is a good idea.

Accelerated is in a really sweet space, ... They're a voice and data gateway.

It's expensive, but a lot of the other stocks in the sector have been pricey. The whole group has really taken off and a lot of it is because of the popularity of electronic trading.

It's a small offering, and the losses don't bother me because they have a new product they're just starting to ship. I can see the consumer benefit.

It's a branded company that has been recycled and shuffled between private equity firms. They're a leader in the market, so they're tied to market growth, which is modest.

It's a good example of a leveraged buyout that actually works.

It's clear that Cisco is going to be a long-term customer,

It validates the sector, but it also gives you a chance to participate in the leader.

They basically have already spent their IPO money.

This is just a warm-up for a big secondary (offering). If they were serious about selling, they'd sell more than 6 percent.

This is just another in a long series of companies which are raising public money to pay AOL and Yahoo, who end up being the real winners, ... If this company goes public, it will definitely prove my theory that fund managers in general do not read prospectuses.

On a strategic basis, big companies often are invested in protecting their market share and expanding from a big base. This leaves small market niches to be developed by companies that can understand and help grow 'under the radar' market niches. If the 'undiscovered niches' grow by leaps and bounds then shareholders reap big rewards.

Their rate of growth is high. A lot about investing is getting in the market segments where the rate of growth is high.

Investors let their guard down in February, and they tightened it up as the year went on.