Barron’s on ADSK, SGI
I was catching up on my reading of Barron’s and came across some interesting financial news pertinent to the geospatial sector. First, I came across the April 13th editorial by Alan Abelson. If you are not familiar with Abelson, he is, IMHO, the best financial news editor/writer in the business, bar none, because his whit and prose are simply unmatched. Abelson chronicles the whimsical comments by Autodesk (ADSK)CEO Carl Bass where he jokingly referred to Antarctica and Greenland as the only geographies possibly unaffected by the economic downturn. (You can find the exact quotes in my review of that analyst call.)
Abelson goes on to say that, "Besides the pleasure of finding a CEO with a sense of humor and, equally important, one who doesn’t suffer foolish questions gladly, the exchange struck us as symptomatic of the insatiable yearning of Wall Street, in general, and sell-side analysts, in particular, to uncover some sliver of bullishness beneath the dismal surface of the unvarnished truth."
If there is an upside to this story, it’s that ADSK has recovered to around $18.39 per share up from just under $12 per share during the deepest, darkest downturn last month. In an earlier Barron’s there was mention of a recommendation to buy the stock at that low level. Looks like more than a few took their advice (full disclosure, I am a stock holder).
Also in the April 13th Barron’s issue was a small note about the bankruptcy filing of Silicon Graphics. Once the high flyer of high powered workstations for GIS, SGI filed for Chapter 11 on April 1st. It sold its assets to Rackable Systems (RACK) for $25 million.
