[Leica] Re: The Leica Brick------David Almy

[Bill <m6rf@yahoo.com>]

"David W. Almy" wrote:

Bill,

I don't mean this in a hostile way, but do you have any facts
regarding
what is going on inside Leica or are you merely relying on Leica's
stock
price, anecdotes and your external view to draw these conclusions?
..................................................................

Bill's reply:

Hi David,  You can be hostile, I don't take this personally.

Leica is a publicly traded company.  As such, there are public
documents that you, I, or anyone else can read about the company if
we choose to seek them out.  There are also news paper and magazine
articles available.  Yes, some of them are in German, which you will
have to translate if you are not a native German speaker, but the
information is there.

Because of my well known interest in Leica Camera and my outspoken
posts to this group, which have at times been picked up and reposted
to German financial servers, plus my reputation for being very
discrete, I receive a lot of very interesting e-mails.  I have been
fortunate enough to be able to separate the good information from the
not so good information.

For example this morning I received an e-mail for a very credible
source that confirmed a rumor I have heard about a questionable
practice being employed by the Leica Sales/Marketing department.
.................................................................

David Almy wrote:

Stock
prices are not always reliable indicators, as I am sure you know.
.................................................................

Bill's reply:

Yes David, this is absolutely true.

But, when you take a companies stock price over a long period of
time, convert it to a graphical representation,  and compare it to
various indicators, you can draw some accurate conclusions.  For
example, generally, Leica stock has sold below it's 38 day moving
average since June of last year.  That is very significant.  In other
words, generally, the stock has been declining in value since June of
last year.  That is not good...especially if you are a stock holder.
...................................................................

David Almy wrote:

A reasonable person might conclude that if Cohn is competent, he has
or
is developing and implementing plans to improve the company, which
will
not happen overnight. Very few of these plans would be public
knowledge.
...................................................................

Bill's reply:

Hanns-Peter Cohn is a competent executive.  There is no question
about that.  He has a proven track record that speaks for itself.

As for "plans to improve the company".  When judging the performance
of a company and/or a CEO in a given situation, you look for results.
 Pure and simple.  The cold hard facts are that Herr Cohn has been on
the job for a year now.  Leica sales are in the toilet.  Leica stock,
which over the long term is usually a quite accurate indicator of a
companies health, is in the toilet.

There are sort term things which could have been implemented to
increase sales, but these have, for what ever reason, not been
implemented.

Most of this stuff is not rocket science.  There are a number of
elementary things which need to be done that the current management
team lacks the courage to do...which is not uncommon in a situation
like this.

Herr Cohn needs to bring in an aggressive outside consultant to point
the sales/marketing and product development departments in the right
direction.  The benefit to this is if the consultant is right, Herr
Cohn gets all of the credit.  If the consultant is wrong, the
consultant takes all of the blame.  Herr Cohn can't loose, but I
can't for the life of me figure out why he hasn't done it.
....................................................................

David Almy wrote:

How have you discovered them?

Your concerns are valid. Your advice is very common sense. What is
missing is hard and likely company-internal facts to support what
appears to be conjecture regarding Cohn's performance.
...................................................................

Bill's reply:

Herr Cohn's performance, like the performance of all CEO's, will be
judged by the companies bottom line.

You are going to have to trust me on this, but Herr Cohn DOES NOT
send me Leica financial figures every week.

I liken Herr Cohn at Leica to the performance of Mr. John Sculley
(sp) at Apple Computer.  Mr. Sculley came from PEPSICO to become CEO
at Apple.  Mr. Sculley is a good CEO, but did not have a "feel" for
the computer business and subsequently damn near drove Apple into the
ground.  Even his successor, who's name I forget from National
Semiconductor, was unable to turn it around.  It took Steve Jobs, who
has a "feel" for that business to turn the company around and take
the company stock from $14 a share to $115 a share.

To put it politely, Herr Cohn needs to bring in someone who can turn
around the sales/marketing department and increase sales.

I truly wish Herr Cohn the best.

Regards,

Bill Erfurth
m6rf@yahoo.com






















.

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com