On Thu, Mar 25, 1999 at 05:12:48PM -0500, Clough, Christopher wrote:
> Asensio subject of 9 lawsuits:
>
> http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/990318/pa_hemisph_1.html
[...]
> http://pages.prodigy.net/kjnowell/murphy.htm
[...]
> http://www.fool.com/EveningNews/1998/EveningNews980609.htm
[...]
> http://www.fool.com/EveningNews/1997/EveningNews971118.htm
[...]
> http://sec.yahoo.com/e/l/c/ccsi.html
Actually, all of these references don't make Asensio look bad at all -- it
looks like disgruntled companies trying to kill the messenger. The
Business Week article:
> http://www.businessweek.com/1996/32/b34871.htm
actually speaks quite favorably of Asensio. Your short quote:
> "It's a small operation--just three analysts aside from Asensio, all
> squeezed into a cramped suite of offices in midtown Manhattan."
in context is actually a positive description. Here's a bit more --
I highly recommend the whole article to discerning readers:
Still, everyday investors have a great deal to learn from
short-sellers. Even when they are wrong or their timing is off,
short-sellers offer a refreshing reality check on the unvarnished
bullishness so prevalent on Wall Street. Short-sellers include
some of the most talented analysts in the investment arena and are
noted for their adroit, labor-intensive research. One
short-selling partnership even includes among its analysts a
retired physician to evaluate biotechnology stocks. But at bottom,
what gives shorts an edge is sheer shoe leather.
``Shoe leather'' might well be Manuel Asensio's middle name. Like
most short-sellers nowadays, Asensio has his fingers in other
pies--from conventional money management to municipal-bond
underwriting. But short-selling is clearly his first love.
Asensio, who runs Asensio & Co., a New York investment boutique, is
a rarity among short-sellers, for he is anything but secretive.
For the first time since the 1980s, when the flamboyant Feshbach
brothers of Palo Alto, Calif., made some highly publicized stock
pans, shorts have a self-appointed...well, ``point man'' might be
the word. ``I respect what he does,'' says one short who has never
met Asensio but has read his research and respects the guts shown
by his public stance on stocks. ``He is totally associated with
his calls''--his short picks--``and that is something you don't see
much of nowadays.'' At least, not among short-sellers.
A native of Cuba who came to the U.S. with his family in 1962, the
41-year-old Asensio began trading while he was a student at Harvard
University in the early 1980s. After stints as a venture-capital
dealmaker and an investment banker at Bear Stearns & Co., he went
into business for himself. Asensio manages about $100 million,
mostly for wealthy clients. It's a small operation--just three
analysts aside from Asensio, all squeezed into a cramped suite of
offices in midtown Manhattan. ``I never subordinate my own
judgment or fact-finding,'' says Asensio. Not surprisingly, he
routinely puts in 14-hour days and hasn't taken a vacation since
February--of 1993.
DETAILS, DETAILS. Although his embrace of the limelight sets him
apart from most shorts--he even issues press releases announcing
his short picks--as an analyst, Asensio hews strictly to the
exhaustive, detail-oriented approach that is the short-sellers'
stock in trade.
NSOL *is* trading at incredible highs, and it wouldn't be the first
Internet High Flyer to take a serious tumble...
Here's some more interesting stuff from the same article:
The whistle-blowing element of short-selling is a sensitive
subject. Short-sellers don't like to trumpet it, but if they feel
that a company is using improper accounting or not making adequate
public disclosures, they have no qualms about contacting the
companies' auditors, the exchanges, the SEC, and lawyers seeking to
bring class actions on behalf of disgruntled investors. And then
there's the financial press. ``I like talking to the press. We're
like investigative reporters ourselves,'' says one short. Another
short-seller keeps a small stack of articles from financial
publications in which he was a source--all exposing fraudulent and
shady companies that ripped off thousands of shareholders. Indeed,
many prominent financial frauds of recent years were targeted by
short-sellers long before they were picked up by regulators and the
press.
--
Kent Crispin "Do good, and you'll be
[EMAIL PROTECTED] lonesome." -- Mark Twain
