RE: Would you invest in [Leica]?

["Lee, Jonathan" <Jonathan.Lee@hrcc.on.ca>]

Jeff,

Funny, my wife the stockbroker were just talking about this
question last week. Leica has just reported poor earnings
and their share price has dropped.  After talking Leica
with her for a while, her opinion was not very favorable.
Her reasons: The company is restructuring has sizable debt and
the camera division has only a niche market with little expectation
of increasing market share through the creation of a new product
(no, TTL does not qualify as a new product). Her opinion is that
luxury good manufacturers are going to have a tough time over
the next few years.  On the other hand, Leica also sells
mciroscopes (I just bought a few, if you think M lenses are expensive,
wait till you see prices for Leica microscope objectives!!!) and
prospects for these are better since Leica dominates this field, with
Zeiss running second.  It is unlikely that Leica will lose dominaiton
of this area or market share, but long term prospects for
increasing revenue in this area are uncertain. 

Conclusion: buy Leica products, stay away from
shares. 

Jonathan Lee
- -----Original Message-----
From: 4season [mailto:4season@boulder.net]
Sent: Wednesday, August 11, 1999 3:46 AM
To: leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us
Subject: Would you invest in [Leica]?


I expect to be investing my money with Warren Buffett & company shortly,
but will likely have a modest amount of leftover cash. Now for you
investment-savvy types, does Leica Camera seem like at least an okay
investment for the next few years? I'm not finding the reports they've
posted a model of candor (certainly no match for Berkshire Hathaway's)
but have deduced that M camera sales are up a bit, R- and Minox sales
are down sharply, that the R-system is a very major source of revenue,
and they've had to sack around 100 of 1,500 employees. Does Leica's new
top management "get it", do they have the means to correct matters
decisively, and might we see some solid performance from Leica Camera in
coming years? Opinions are welcomed!

Jeff

PS: And if the R8 is Leica's new M5 of the '90s, could an R7-2 inject
life back into the company? And are there any hints of such a beast?