Mr. Sarkar: I have a hybrid coverage space. My employer, Auriga, is a startup and, as a niche provider of research, is allowing me to do something that is unusual. In terms of my coverage, five of my companies are carriers and four of them are telecom equipment vendors.
TWST: What is Auriga USA?
Mr. Sarkar: Auriga USA is owned by a Spanish bank and has enjoyed a strong bond business in the U.S. for a while. Their venture into equities is more recent, having started at the beginning of this year. The Spanish parent decided to build a research platform to take advantage of the vacuum that exists on Wall Street now with so many research firms having closed their doors.
TWST: What is the status of each of those sectors?
Mr. Sarkar: Obviously, although they are separate, they are intertwined. The carriers have been suffering a great deal. There are two things causing this. First, the larger companies like Verizon and AT&T are facing a lot of pressure on their wireline businesses. That is partly because of increased competition and partly because of the state of the economy. Even though the economy has started to come back, the enterprise businesses of these carriers are typically much more tied to the employment rate, which continues to deteriorate. These are the main reasons why wireline continues to suffer.
On the wireless side, AT&T and Verizon have done okay mostly because of the strong growth in data services. But smaller competitors, like Leap and MetroPCS, and to a certain extent Sprint, are suffering more as competition has heated up in the U.S. prepaid segment.
Tickers included in this excerpt: AAPL, ALU, DT, GOOG, LEAP, NTL, PCS, S, T, TEF, TLAB, VZ
For more information call (212) 952 7433. The Wall Street Transcript does not endorse any of the comments made by interviewees, and does not make stock recommendations.