Strange, isn't it? Sun Microsystems trades at 26 times cash flow. Yahoo! Inc. trades at 780 times cash flow. Yet 60% of all public companies trade at less that six times cash flow. Why is that?
    Any study of the Russell 2000 quickly uncovers the answer. If you company is a "not com," as opposed to a "dot com," with a market capitalization of $250 million or less, the odds are excellent that there are one or fewer analysts covering the stock. In fact according to Bruce Krogstad, the Managing Director of Issuer Services for NASDAQ, "Fully half of the NASDAQ listed companies have zero analyst coverage."
    As the stock market continues to grow, analysts as well as investors and market makers have moved upstream to larger companies. NO analyst coverage means virtually no investor knows about the business. As a result, try as the company will, it tends to staying the "less than six times cash flow" trading rut.
    Dot coms are not immune either. In 1999, there were 447 e-commerce companies that filed to go public. Picture this ... how many of those will be successful public firms in 18 months? Will there be 50 that survive independently? Probably not.
    The reality is that in order to re-create stockholder value, a fundamental recapitalization of the company must take place. Equity must move away from an under-whelmed public and in the hands of those who will better appreciate it, namely a larger company that will acquire this firm or management