This story always fascinated me, so I had to close it out.
SCMR announced it will be liquidating the company.
Sycamore announces intent to proceed with Dissolution; Certificate of Dissolution expected to be filed on March 7, 2013 (0.56)Co announced today that its Board of Directors has determined that, for the reasons stated in the Definitive Proxy Statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in connection with the Special Meeting of Stockholders of the Company held on January 29, 2013, and after reviewing strategic alternatives for all of the Company’s assets and available options for providing value to the Company’s stockholders, it is advisable and in the best interest of the stockholders for the Company to proceed with its previously announced liquidation and dissolution in accordance with the plan of complete liquidation and dissolution that the stockholders approved at the Special Meeting, effective as of the close of business on March 7, 2013.
After paying more than $14.00 in special dividends, the last remnant from the dot come bubble is calling it quits. If you are not aware of the story, in a nut shell, this is what happened.
Just before the dot com bubble bursted in 2000, SCMR was a high flying stock. They did a secondary offering when the stock was around $1,400 (split adjusted), netting them more than a billion dollars. Hell, the market cap of SCMR, at its peak, was $44 billion.
When the bubble popped, the stock plummeted so hard and fast, due to their business falling to drill bits. However, because they had a billion dollars sitting in US treasuries (they never had a chance to spend it), the interest alone on the bonds kept them alive. It offset the losses from the operating business, after they slimmed down to survive the new, new economy. One could argue that management milked SCMR just to draw 13 years of salary. They tried to reinvigorate the business several years ago, through an acquisition–but it fell flat.
Today marks the end of the dot com bubble, the very last remnant of an era of excitement, excess and legendary stock runs.
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great post
That stock nearly killed me. Took me a while to recover from egregious losses. Throw in some AVNX, and it was nearly light’s out. Good riddance…
I got crushed on global light telecom: gbt
Co-worker bought a WCOM $100,000 bond. Not a happy man.
good times
lets not forget CMGI ICGE
I remember buying some crazy piece of shiite, ticker XLA … bought some at 128 … went to lunch, came back, halted …. reopens over 200 on some bs news … thems were the days
I shorted Amazon at 300. I covered six weeks later at 1000 (split-adjusted).
About bankruptured me.
Gint, averaging down on “silver and gold”?
Im too young to know what the dot com bubble was like. Did people realize that stocks were incredibly overpriced yet kept buying anyways or were most blindsided by it? Obviously hindsight is 20/20 but it just seems so ridiculous.
Cnbc helped keep the bubble going by promoting them.
They would but out a price target on a $300 stock like $AMZN 100 bucks higher and it would go there…THAT DAY. So you didn’t ask if they were overvalued, you just traded them and minted money.
sold remaining DUST shares
PMs: The End of an Era
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