09/18/2006

Privately Speaking

Hello:

There is a trend of publicly traded companies being purchased by private investment consortiums and going private. There are two main reasons for this:

1). Venture Capital is searching for good investments, and currently the stock market is posting this year's earnings at
stock prices from six years ago. That is six years of nearly consistent growth, with hardly a stock price increase.

2). Sarbanes-Oxley legislation is lots of paperwork with no upside and lots of downside for the corporate officers
(including the threat of jail time for non-compliance).

Therefore, when a hedge-fund comes-a-courting, you can be pretty sure that if the price is right, the corporate officers, and the board of directors, are listening.

The Fed is due to meet on Wednesday. The 17 previous rate increases appear to have turned the volume down on the real estate boom. It would not surprise us if the Fed continued to hold rates steady at this time.

Do your donors, officers, volunteers and staff know what is next for the Baby Boomer Generation? Boomers have transformed every stage of life they have entered, and now they are poised to transform retirement and philanthropy. We been selected to present Ken Dychtwald's (www.agewave.com) latest semimar Your Power Years, which is a world class presentation offering eye-opening facts. Over the past 30 years, Ken Dychtwald, Ph.D., a psychologist, gerentologist and author has emerged as the nation's formost visionary and original thinker of the Baby Boomer "age wave". He has made headlines in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today.

We will offer this compelling seminar on a first-come, first-serve basis to select organizations that can build an audience of 50 people or more. Call to book Your Power Years while opportunity knocks!

Terri G. Millson, CIMA, CIMC President

Ray Dicius, CSA, GEPC LPL Branch Manager