Friday, December 15, 2006

Large Glenayre Tech (GEMS) Holder Chapman Capital Expresses Concerns

In an amended 13D filing after the close on Glenayre Technologies, Inc. (Nasdaq: GEMS), 9.7% holder Chapman Capital LLC disclosed a letter to the company reiterating concerns by many Glenayre's owners regarding CEO Jim Caparro's lack of direct financial ties to the Common Stock of Glenayre.

The firm expressed concerns when Mr. Caparro disclosed that he had purchased an additional interest in privately placed securities of the EDC division, instead of purchasing even a single share of Glenayre stock. The firm also said various owners also had voiced their concerns over Mr. Caparro's troubled, brief tenure while CEO of Atari Inc., which experienced financial difficulties during the period of Mr. Caparro's leadership.

A Copy of the Letter:

Mr. Schwitter,

Chapman Capital L.L.C. is the investment advisor to entities that own nearly 10% of the common stock of Glenayre Technologies, Inc. (hereinafter, "Glenayre"). Evidence of this ownership exists in a Schedule 13D filed August 24, 2006 and subsequent Form 13F filed November 8, 2006, with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Our investors’ ownership of Glenayre’s common stock shares should not be confused with the investment securities reportedly purchased by Glenayre CEO James M. Caparro. Mr. Caparro, instead of using the cash given to him by Glenayre’s owners (last year alone in the form of approximately $1,000,000 in salary and bonus, including social club fees) to purchase the same Glenayre stock owned by the shareholders paying his egregiously high income, has decided on several occasions to make an investment (apparently not offered to top Glenayre shareholders such as Chapman Capital) in Glenayre’s EDC subsidiary.1 This correspondence relates to your letter dated December 13, 2006, on behalf of Glenayre’s Mr. Caparro.

Chapman Capital hereby advises your firm and Mr. Caparro to cease and desist in taking the following actions:

1) Making Baseless, Spurious Claims: As conveyed to Mr. Caparro yesterday (when he first returned the last of over twenty unanswered messages left for him by three members of Chapman Capital), no abusive (much less illegal) communication has been directed at any employee of Glenayre by any member of Chapman Capital. The commentary purportedly received by Mr. James Jewell (apparently a secretary within Mr. Caparro’s office) accusing him of being “Chief Ankle Grabber … of the Castro District”, whatever that is intended to mean, was not communicated by any associate of Chapman Capital. Chapman Capital has neither knowledge nor interest in such personal matters relating to Glenayre employees. In fact, we find those allegations particularly insulting to members of the homosexual community, many of whom presumably send private, potentially provocative, text messages over Glenayre’s globally-installed messaging systems. Once again, I must reiterate that we support Mr. Jewell no matter what may be his sexual preference, irrespective of how or where it may manifest itself, subject to his behavior not putting at risk our investors’ sizable stake in Glenayre.

On numerous occasions, Chapman Capital has received telephone calls from individuals claiming to be parties other than themselves (“pretexting"), with the occasional delivery of profanity as part of this impersonation. In fact, several months ago we received a call from someone apparently pretending to be “Jimmy Caparro,” and who demanded that I personally “genuflect before [him] and play a song on [his] ‘skin flute’.” Though I do not have any knowledge of Mr. Caparro’s sexual preference, I was confident that Mr. Caparro was not the person making that call, even in the highly unlikely event that that this may have been his personal fantasy. More importantly, like Glenayre and yourself, I did not possess any evidence to support any such outrageous claim, and thus saw no need to enlist the services of outside counsel. As Mr. Jewell has virtually no experience speaking with me, it is impossible that he could have any confidence in matching to my voice the voice of the party that purportedly made such insensitive comments to Mr. Jewell (whatever may be his sexual orientation). I myself could not identify the voice of any employee of Glenayre, including Mr. Caparro (even though I have spoken with him on three occasions.)

2) Wasting Corporate Assets: Your letter is so entirely preposterous as to only be viewed as a waste of corporate assets. Under the leadership of Messrs. James M. Caparro and Clark H. Bailey, Glenayre has reported net losses in each of the last three quarters, and as such a company hardly can afford paying whatever overpriced and potentially padded bills any law firm (other than Paul Hastings, which certainly never has padded any bills to clients) may submit for "services rendered." I must believe, Mr. Schwitter, that there are enough ambulances for you to chase in New York City (or pedestrians who slip and fall on the winter snow) to surpass the billable hours threshold imposed upon you by your partners, and that you will not find the need to scribe such absurd communiqués in the future. This is particularly important given that Chapman Capital's investors indirectly are paying nearly 10% of each of any bill from a law firm such as yours.

3) First Amendment Rights/Public Figures: Though is it possible that Constitutional Law was not taught at your alma mater (The Albany Law School of Union University; Paul Hastings hopefully has raised the bar on new associates since 1983), I encourage you to read something seemingly foreign to you called the "First Amendment." Therein, Chapman Capital (via its employees) derives the right to express its opinions, and make disclosures of fact, relating to Glenayre, its employees and officers. No matter how threatening your letter was intended to be, you cannot stop Glenayre’s owners from expressing an opinion that Mr. Caparro is a washed-up entertainment industry executive whose position as CEO of Atari Inc. terminated in June 2005 after a mere six-month tenure, and just weeks before Atari’s shares plunged 39% in one day after reporting a financial-covenant breaching loss for the June 2005 quarter during which Mr. Caparro was its CEO.2

Given your apparent lack of knowledge in this area, I also seriously doubt that U.S. history was available at your undergraduate alma mater (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; I suspect your curriculum may have been in TV/VCR repair, or perhaps Computer Drafting and Design was your specialty). Please, for your own benefit and that of Glenayre’s owners, please inquire if “the Institute” will allow someone your age to enroll in a crash course in "Criminal Justice." Should you pass the requisite classes, I strongly recommend that you apply any newfound knowledge to the backdated options investigation at Glenayre itself. Mr. Clarke Bailey certainly would be more than happy to sit down with you and explain how such a potential criminal act is perpetrated upon the innocent owners of a public company.

Sincerely,

Robert L. Chapman, Jr.

1 On December 13, 2006, in a conversation with Mr. Chapman, Mr. Caparro confirmed that since becoming affiliated with Glenayre in 2005, he had not purchased a single share of Glenayre stock.

2 On August 10, 2005, Atari (Nasdaq: ATAR) shares experienced their largest drop ever after announcing a $32.8 million first quarter loss and a 78% drop in sales. This forced Atari to say that it would rely on its majority owner, France’s Infogames Entertainment SA, for financing after the results caused it to violate financial covenants.

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