Updated March 22, 2008. Edits explained at the end of the post. - ST
I was reading a news item about the resignation of Mathstar's chief financial officer. I was surprised to see a publicly traded semiconductor company I'd never heard of, so I checked it out.
Turns out that Mathstar is like a number of companies I've come across over the years: they come in under the radar screen and, as such, investors think they've found something special.
Sure, these companies are special, but not in a good way.
(Credit:
Mathstar)
Mathstar markets itself as a development-stage fabless semiconductor company. Its products are called field-programmable object arrays, or FPOAs, and are targeted at high-performance, data-intensive applications like defense, security, medical imaging, and video.
Sounds good, right? ... Read more
IPOs (initial public offerings) are a huge event in a company's life and definitely worthy of celebration. That said, they're not the be all and end all that many expect them to be. Just ask the folks at Vonage what they think of their post-IPO fortunes.
Just as many things can go wrong after an IPO as before. And public companies have increased legal and financial scrutiny, plus the Sarbanes-Oxley tax to boot.
Sure, IPOs are a liquidity event, but that doesn't mean you'll necessarily cash out before things fall apart. The following ten companies, which I followed for some reason or other, fizzled after their IPOs: ... Read more
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