Comjoyful International Co. (KJFI)

[FeverPitch]

Has this ever been posted here ?, it's old but is Daniel Wettreich still involved here ?


FOOL ON THE HILL
An Investment Opinion by Randy Befumo

Camelot: A Vulture Rising from the Ashes

Like a vulture rising from the ashes, CAMELOT CORP. (NYSE: CAML) has been reborn -- again. The holding company's shares rose $4 3/16 to $10 1/4 today after yesterday issuing a dramatic announcement designed to incite investor enthusiasm. Add this to the $2 21/32 increase in the shares yesterday and you have a 201% move in less than 48 hours -- not bad for one press release. Camelot reported yesterday that it has arranged a series of meetings with the world's top ten PC manufacturers to demonstrate its VideoTalk Internet videoconferencing technology -- an application it claims can deliver high-quality videoconferencing for a fraction of the cost of other systems.

Camelot says that VideoTalk is a complete hardware and software system that can be connected to PCs with multimedia capacity to turn them into videoconferencing devices. VideoTalk allegedly allows full-duplex over local and wide area networks without requiring a soundcard or a video capture card, allowing users with 28.8 kpbs modems to use the product with extremely low processor loads. All you need is a VideoTalk add-in card, a NTSC color video camera, a handset, and the VideoTalk and DigiPhone software. Although not explicitly stated, the implication of the press release is that the deals with top PC manufacturers are pretty much fait accompli after it finishes up the one-on-one demonstrations over the next two months.

Unfortunately, all of this big talk is not the first time Camelot and Chief Executive Daniel Wettreich have made big promises to investors. The company's DigiPhone product, released with great investor fanfare but little consumer interest in 1995, is one of the core elements of the new VideoTalk product. Promises of up to 200 "Mr. CD-ROM" retail stores selling CDs flopped after the first store, now closed, failed to get off the ground. Camelot's history, even before DigiPhone and Mr. CD-ROM, can be called checkered at best. Originally beginning life as Bolyard Oil & Gas, the company changed its name to Camelot Corp. in 1989. Management has tried everything from selling real estate to retailing -- normally focusing in on whatever has been perceived as hot or popular at the time in a manner that can only be labeled as opportunistic.

Camelot's well-orchestrated plan to increase the value of its shares began on July 15, when the company did a 1-for-40 reverse stock split in order to bring the shares back to significance. Trading as low as 12 cents a share in June, the 1-for-40 reverse split brought the stock back up to the $5 to $10 range most serious investors usually require. Camelot's decision to do the reverse-split only two months before its big product announcement shows a degree of forethought and premeditation normally reserved for business plans. As a result of the split, the shares now appear to be higher than the 1995 price of $7 15/16 per share, hit amidst the excitement about the DigiPhone. Many of the historical stock quote engines have not caught up with this change, and fail to show that the actual split-adjusted 1995 high is a whopping $317 1/2. This means that investors who bought into the company's big talk in 1995 about DigiPhone and the vast chain of Mr. CD-ROM stores have basically lost all of their money -- even after the gigantic move in the stock over the last two days.

When the DigiPhone was originally released, Wettreich claimed the company had no real competition. "By the first quarter of [1996], we will have five million potential users via strategic partnerships." But with VOCALTEC (Nasdaq: VOCLF) holding more than 80% of the Internet phone market and locked into a pretty sweet deal with Deutsche Telecom, Wettreich's imagined future has not come to pass. With DigiPhone failing in at least three public demonstrations in 1995, it is not even clear if Camelot is going to be able to get the thing to work when it shows it to the PC manufacturers. Additionally, unless the company has some kind of patent protection on the VideoTalk component of the product, it may not even be able to keep competitors from ripping it off. Wettreich admitted in 1995 that Camelot had no patents on the DigiPhone -- which was why Quarterdeck was able to come out with a substantially similar Internet phone only a week after Camelot announced its device.

Unfortunately for novice investors, Camelot executives and directors know what gets excited beyond reason. Much like C-PHONE (Nasdaq: CFON) and the now defunct Systems of Excellence, when companies start talking about cheap videoconferencing via the Internet people apparently check their brains in at the door. With C-Phone down substantially from its December 1996 highs and Systems of Excellence completely bankrupt, one would think people might eventually learn that all that glitters is not a successful consumer videoconferencing technology. Given Camelot's past history of encouraging unrealistic expectations, if anyone is rushing headlong into taking a position in the company, it should probably be as a short, not as something they anticipate to increase in value. Certainly, there is a massive gap between the issuance of a press release and the signing of original equipment manufacturer (OEM) agreements with major PC companies that people are not really thinking about today.

http://64.233.161.104/search?q=cache:22x7U2-ZSokJ:www.fool.com/EveningNews/1997/EveningNews970925.ht...