About time someone paid attention!
Ampex, a tech high flyer years ago, has recently settled with Sony, Canon and Sanyo for about $70 million to allow these companies to CONTINUE to use Ampex patents. Forbes.com: Sanyo shares UP 8.8% due to Ampex settlement (in other words, Sanyo got a roughly $500 MILLION market cap increase for settling). Who else is in their crosshairs? - they recently started written negotiations with 17 digital cameral manufacurers. By the way, Ampex WAS in dire financial straits when accepting these deals. It is not any longer. And there are many more potential targets, in digital cameras, DVD recorders, cell phones, etc. Ampex publicly announced that they expect MULTIPLE additional licensing agreements within the next 2-3 months as well. By the way, Kodak has about the same share of digital cameras as Sony and Ampex no longer needs to settle at discounted rates.
Keep in mind that Ampex (AEXCA) only has [less than] an $80 million equity market cap (and fewer than 4 million shares - huge share price leverage - a $10 share price rise only increases the value of the company by less than $40 million) even after the recent run up. Ampex patents (and corresponding litigation or threatened action) have QUICKLY caused these companies to pay up. Sony has publicly claimed that the $40 million settlement is [cheap]. Ampex may have patents that could cause one or several major manufacturers/sellers of digital cameras, cell phones, DVD recorders, etc. to shut down significant operations/American imports. If you were Fuji (or Nokia, Motorola, Ericson, Samsung, Minolta, Panasonic, etc., etc.), wouldn't you buy Ampex to extract royalties from competitors or to shut them out of your business lines?
Also, keep in mind that paying Ampex $80 million (for example only) would be an immediate EXPENSE against Kodak's earnings (and hurt critical earnings per share). Buying Ampex would not!!
I am a former securities analyst (and covered Ampex in the early 1990s).
I own Ampex shares.
