Well what did you expect?
If you dance with the Devil then either you're going to be fabulously wealthy (and then he'll Get You later) or you're going to get burnt. You knew that going in. Suck it up. You gambled and you lost.
Analysts have suggested the collapse of sapphire glass manufacturer GT Advanced Technologies may have been caused by a "breakdown" in relations with Apple. The iThing giant appeared to be determined to use the scratch-resistant wonder material in its new iPhones and the Apple Watch, but those plans were thrown into doubt on …
Apology accepted, Captian Neda
Thanks to John Gruber for that link
"What we do not understand is why the two companies did not restructure the agreement to buy some time for GTAT and how did this relationship potentially breakdown to this extent"
Because Apple's executive are back-stabbing SOBs who do not care about anything else but Apple's bottom-line. Why pay a premium when you can force the other company's stock-price down and buy it all for small change?
Because Apple's executive are back-stabbing SOBs who do not care about anything else but Apple's bottom-line. Why pay a premium when you can force the other company's stock-price down and buy it all for small change?
How do you know that? Citation please?
Have Apple done this before?
We know that MS does this to stifle competition (EEE) but do Apple have a track record of this?
I must admit, my first thought was that Apple had done this deliberately in order to buy them at a discount, but I am also unable to think of a single instance where they had followed this approach before.
In fact, Apple have (so far) gone out of their way to avoid owning most of their own manufacturing capability, prefering to invest with existing companies to either improve their facilities or introduce a new capability and then have that investment be recouped as manufacturing discounts and/or guaranteed production levels.
Natually, anyone who wants to continue to believe that Apple are evil should ignore any developments in this story that do not support that supposition.
sold $10 million in stock since Feb 14; and 9000 shares ($160,000) two days before the Apple 6/6+ announcement. Coincidence?
Apple may get the company on the cheap, but Apple pumped a load of cash into GT which allowed them to expand their operations. You can't compare what happened to Phones4U with this.
Indeed.
He's claiming that the sale of stock was according to a plan laid out in March, but that doesn't make things any less dodgy.
Put yourself in his shoes. It's March and you're well aware by now that your glass isn't going to be in the iPhone 6, while analysts and media pundits are bending over backwards spreading rumours that it is. What do you do? Sell...preferably discreetly, over the next 6 months.
the whole iPhone 6 sapphire glass RUMOUR, was started by 'journalists' at the WSJ. Now the 6 doesn't have sapphire glass, these scurrilous 'journos' are backtracking fast. It's amazing that a trader can get jailed for a 10$ insider trade, but 'journos' like this, who can cause massive gyrations in stock prices get away scott free.
Perhaps some of those journos had bought shares in GT before they broke their "saphire iPhone 5" story/rumour?
I've often wondered if there's collusion between stock traders and journos - like when they write "Bacon will take 5yrs off your life" type stories, are the traders all out buying pork futures the following day, knowing the general public will have forgotten how unsafe bacon is a week later?
SD