businessman's risk: A Bit Player Buys Into the Computer Age (NYT, 1989)

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December 3, 1989

By JOHN MAXWELL HAMILTON; JOHN MAXWELL HAMILTON, SENIOR PUBLIC AFFAIRS ADVISER AT THE WORLD BANK, IS THE AUTHOR OF THE FORTHCOMING BOOK ''ENTANGLING ALLIANCES,'' FROM WHICH THIS ARTICLE IS ADAPTED.

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...... But once again, the stock's price seemed to have little to do with the underlying value of the company. During 1988 Saztec moved from Los Angeles - where operations had been based since Fraser set up his United States beachhead - to the newly acquired data center in Kansas City, where expenses would be lower. At the same time, the money being pumped into sales was beginning to pay off in lucrative new contracts. Saztec reported a loss of $1.1 million in 1988, but revenues were up 160 percent to $9.2 million.

For Saztec, ''1989 was the year to spend money,'' says Roberts. ''In 1989, things really took off.'' The company's share price headed back up, and market makers showed new interest. Rodman & Renshaw, an investment bank in Chicago, began dealing in Saztec shares in February, when the bid price was around 2 1/4. Saztec's stock remains a speculative risk, concedes Mark J. Grant, managing director of Rodman & Renshaw's Kansas City office, ''but it's a businessman's risk.''

Since Saztec's mid-year announcement of a million-dollar profit for 1989, accompanied by its projections of 20 percent growth for 1990, the stock has risen further. Through the autumn, bid prices were in the 4-to-4 1/4 range. ''This time,'' Roberts says, ''the price increase is for all the right reasons.''

LAST WINTER SAZTEC USED A LASER technology known as image scanning to put pictures of the Gerber baby, McDonald's golden arches and more than 600,000 other registered trademarks onto compact disks that can present color drawings and photographs on a computer screen. The $1-million job was performed for a company that intends to provide services for attorneys and research companies specializing in copyright law. ......