BUSINESS______Filling of Wetland Being Considered 1,000% Gainer: Super Stock Or Hype? ...Page 4
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20 - MANCHESTER HERALD, Tues.. Dec. 21, 1982 BUSINESS___________ Filling of wetland being considered 1,000% gainer: super stock or hype? ...page 4 derpriced, considering this remarkable corporate feat During the recent market rally, many stocks, as we disk drives, a direct-mail fund-raiser, a non-operating know, have doubled and tripled. And some, especially on former oil and gas producer with assets of $4.5 million he’s going to accomplish. _ ■; Smith, you’ve no doubt guessed, strongly agrees, u .' the touty and speculative over-the-counter market, have and a Smith-owned company that manufactures a digital you put IBM in a corporate shell, it shouldn’t be valued risen 400, 500 and even 600 percent. But an even more storage and retrievable system using a video disk. At tbe completion of all of these acquisitions, the at $5,’’ he says. “If the market does anything logical, the_ ■ exclusive group is the 1,000 percent gainers — stocks Dan Dorfman Chance of rain Manchester, Conn. that have actually gone up 10 times in a matter of just a number of Duke’s shares will nearly double to about 20 stock will be $15 to $20 shortly.” million, roughly a third of which will be owned by Smith, A onetime insurance salesman and radio announcer. Wednesday, Dec. 22, 1982 few months. ' Syndicatetd Smith rejects the idea that he can’t build a $1 billion-^ Thursday afternoon One such spectacular gainer is a little OTC number As for the sales and earnings numbers. Smith’s best Columnist calculation now is that Duke (soon to be renamed TU business before the end of ’85. “I don’t see any obstacles ; — iSde page 2 Single copy 25q: called Duke of Energy of Cushing. Okla.; its shares, a ■ that can prevent me from doing it,” he says. “Maybe ^ little over 11.1 million all told, have jumped from 50 International) will earn (on 20 million shares) about 33 IrralJi there’re are some difficulties, but nothing insurmoun-'' cents in late September to a current price of just oyer cents a share in ’82 on a volume of around $52 million. $5. That's quite a rise for a company that was nothing And next year, he sees about $1.25 a share on sales of table.” more than a corporate shell (with no sales and earnings) around $144 million. For such an achiever, how come, I asked Smith, you just a few months back. Now that's impressive growth (if it ever comes to personally went bankrupt? Just the other day 1 had a three-hour breakfast with pass), but it falls short of what one might perceive as BECAUSE OF SOME fairly illiquid real estate in the man behind the company — Rocky Smith, the 38- THE STOCK stayed around the 50 cents level to last one of the greatest corporate growth stories ever vestments, he explained. Actually, his father, the head year-old, 325-pound roly-poly chairman and chief Sept. 24; at that time, Duke (with assets of $1.4 million) written (as boasted by Smith). Well, read on folks: as of an oil well services company, called in his loan. But it executive officer. One thing is sure: He's either the was merged with several companies controlled by Jimmy Durante used to say, “You ain’t heard nutti’ was a friendly foreclosure. Smith tells me; he says his biggest stock tout I've met in years (and full of hot air, Smith. They were Rockie Smith Enterprises, which yet.” Jaruzelski dad did it to avoid potential tax problems. supplies data processing services; Microlog Inc., which to boot) or the architect of what he openly brags will be SMITH FIGURES the company will do a volume of Smith made his comeback through the sale of the makes components for microcomputers, and Xedex one of the greatest corporate growth stories ever $600 million-$700 million in '84 and over $1 billion in ’85. family’s oil well services company; he got about $2.5 Corp., Microlog's sales and marketing arm. The trio written. Or just maybe, he falls somewhere in between. Looking at potential earnings that far out is clearly million personally out of that transaction. And he also will do maybe $6.5 million of volume this year. treacherous (what with the vagaries of the economy and boosted his net worth through some profitable real es f W g i IN VN^ ENT, he's a doer. In April of '80, he From then on, the stock took on new luster, rising to t . declared personal bankruptcy. Today, he boasts a per competition). But not to Smith; obviously his vision is tate ventures. , Iwkm about 70 cents a share in late October, to $3 by Smith, who’ll shortly be moving the company s , sonal net worth of over $50 million, with about $31.5 Thanksgiving, and then to a recent high of $6.25 before as sharp as Superman’s. says U.S. He sees earnings of $100 million in ’84 and $150 million- headquarters to Dallas and who observes that a major ’ million of that in Duke of Energy stock; he owns 56 per backing off to its current price of around $5. cent of the company or roughly 6.3 million shares. $160 million in '85, or $2.50 and $4.50 a share. focus of his acquisition strategy is companies with sur "a? How come the surge? Included here is a big acquisition that Smith expects plus management, took note of my ongoing skepticism Smith is also the chairman of Dallas-based Western Because of an acquisition binge ^ six companies all to make in '83. The company in mind, though, has yet to about his billion-dollar goal in ’85. Gold & Gas. an oil and gas producer. The stock sells told, and all of which should be completed by year-end. - 8 .., around $2 and Smith owns a little over 6 million shares. be chosen: however. Smith tells me he’ll soon be “ If you say, gosh, it’s impossible to do a billion, you ■ t l J Smith tells me. meeting with the folks that run a privately held $200 never get there," says Smith. “And most people don’t First to a backgrounder on Duke of Energy, which ac One of them is Terminals Unlimited, a national com tually has little to do with the energy field, other than million maker of micro-computers. achieve large goals because thev focus on the size of the " is harmful puter sales and services company based in Falls goal and that scares them. Our approach: to break it all ■ the ownership of some mineral leases. Church, Va. Ink Magazine recently listed TU as the se Smith figures that this big acquisition will boost the number of company shares to around 40 million since down in several hundred pieces . and then it’s not so . In August of '80, a group of nine investors put up about cond fastest-growing private company in the country $400,000 and some 90 days later made a public offering of he'll be making it for an estimated $200 million in stock. frightening. I never think about the billion, but the next MOSCOW (UPI) - Polish leader whirlwind.” with '81 sales of $16.7 million and estimated '82 sales oi step.” “The ball is now in the court of the 2 million shares at 50 cents a share. The company, $22 million. The purchase price; $21 million in Duke of ?!k. ' '**' L«(‘ Wojciech Jaruzelski today said the headquarters at the time in Salt Lake City. Utah, was ONE CAN understand his reliance on stock; at pre But isn’t it just possible you won’t get to a billion? United States "is harming Poland” U.S.A.,” Andropov said. Energy shares. In Washington, State Department set up as a blind pool; in other words, you raise money sent. the company, so he tells me, only has about $6 "OK. let’s say we don’t get to $1 billion,” responds and his military regime will not give and at some point down the road you invest it in some rilE OTHER acquisitions, proposed or completed, million in cash and cash equivalents. Smith, “but just $400 million. Is $400 million so bad . in to what he described as U.S. ef officials insisted Tuesday that there 9*- was nothing new in the speech. kind of business. include a refurbisher of buses, a maker of computer One might also think that Duke's shares are quite un h r forts to tear it away from the Com P .f munist bloc. “The Soviet proposal contained in Herald photos by Tarquinio “ Poland is now on the front line of Mr. Andropov’s speech today is un \ the global class struggle,” he told a acceptable because it would leave i - l n Brief- ceremonial meeting marking the the Soviets with, several hundred Microcomputer con be versatile tool Vertigo 60th anniversary of the formation of warheads on SS-20s while denying us the Soviet Union. the means to deter that threat,’’ multifunctional microcom time. “Too many workers spokesman John Hughes said. By LeRoy Pope manufacturer provides specific applications of the and require them to use Mike Murray of East Hartford (top, right) “The United States is harming Leaider chosen training to the customers’ microcomputer. The them and they are in puter for word processing try it for a couple of weeks climbs the ladder on the town fire Poland wherever and whenever it In Europe, British Prime Minister UPl Business Writer on their own, find the staff as part of the courses are intensified af timidated by the machine instead of a larger, more department’s tower truck as part of an agility can,” Jaruzelski said, accusing Margaret ’Thatcher and French costly singlepurpose com manufacturers’ manuals Foreign Minister Claude Cheysson HARTFORD — John H.