Quarterhill Inc (QTRHF)

[jtdiii]

Thoughts from a rational investor.(Mike on Yahoo)

..." I am sure Apple is talking to us right now. The court win destroyed Wi-Lan. But now Apple might regret the approach taken as these patents can now find their way into the hands of a well funded American player. Much preferable to have a weak Wi-lan with its business model on life support being paid $70 million over 7 years...".



..." Our best bet is to sell the company. Wi-lan is much more valuable to a company that can extract fair value for the patents. And the smart phone wars may not last forever - and would be better to get out before Blackberrys patents are on the block..."



".. Even with an Apple win, our economics would have only been a 3 to 1 return. Good, but not great and far worse than what Interdigital (IDCC:Nasdaq) and others can gather. The fact that Wi-Lan disclosed the backlog means it has given up..".


.."Now investors can see that the last two years were a waste. I bet management never wanted to disclose it, but knew the stock would have collapsed even more if they kept it a secret and would have faced a shareholder lawsuit. The goal was to stabilize the share price. Put a floor under the stock and get a reasonable bid for its assets..."


.." But even though they continue to miss expectations, disappoint investors and screw up, I think the breakup value is worth much more than just $3.25, so I'm not selling at these prices. We should all be placing pressure on management to get the value out of the business..".


.." Interdigital (IDCC:Nasdaq) has $800 million in cash. Buying Wi-Lan would double its US patent portfolio as well as its essential LTE patent portfolio..".

..." Purchase price of (for example) $5 would cost $430 million (net cash on hand). Or about half of their cash on hand. This would be immediately accretive to earnings and would enhance ability to get renewals on better terms (with double the esstential LTE patent portfolio)..".


..." Given the present value of existing revenue stream, Interdigital would only be paying $200 million for 1,700 wireless and 1,300 video patents. That is ~100k per wireless patent or $60k for all patents.....Seems like a steal to me for them. Can put their cash to work and have an immediately accretive transaction.."


..." I think you get $5-6 from a company like Interdigital, Acacia or RPX. OR a management buyout. I think you get $6-8 if you get a strategic buyer with very weak 4G position. There aren't too many portfolios of this size that come for sale that often...."


..." It would be silly for a company to make it obvious that they were contemplating a takeover. All hedge funds would have to do would be to spot the "patterns" before a takeover to make lots of money...".


..." Looking at the insider ownership - the largest owner is Acuity Investment Management, which was acquired by AGF. They own 11 million shares (assuming they haven't sold any in past couple of days)...."



..." An announcement by them that they are looking for ways to maximize shareholder value would be a very welcome one!..."

(All of the above extracted thoughts from multiple posts are courtesy of Mike on the Wi-lan Yahoo Board)

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Read more at http://www.stockhouse.com/companies/bullboard/t.win/wi-lan-inc?postid=21851282#G4WWM04sdEIvbM4H.99