BUSINESSWEEK ONLINE : DECEMBER 11, 2000 ISSUE
FINANCE Unconventional Wisdom from Lehman You might say this credit analyst is getting the credit he deserves. In June, Ravi Suria, who covers Amazon.com Inc. for Lehman Brothers Inc., dropped a bomb on the Internet world with a report that likened Amazon to an Old Economy retailer and asserted that its creditworthiness was ''extremely weak and deteriorating.'' It was sharp analysis in a market where most analysts seem to be press agents for investment bankers. And it was a needed wake-up call. Since Suria's report, investors are paying more heed to once-obscure bond analysts. BUMPY ROAD. ''The past six months have opened up the world a lot more than I imagined,'' Suria says. His Amazon report--and a subsequent downbeat report on the telecom sector in early November--have propelled Suria into rarefied Wall Street realms. His research has caught the attention of the world's top money managers, and he has been asked to speak at B-schools. But there have been some bumps along the road. Sources say Suria's Amazon report caused upheaval in the research trenches at Lehman. Holly Becker, Lehman's equity analyst who covers Amazon, had a ''buy'' on the company at the time. She was not pleased when Suria's report was released. ''He's a relatively unknown credit analyst who has written a report--having never spoken to the company and having no insight into the company's strategy,'' she told BUSINESS WEEK at the time. But she put her own highly publicized downgrade on Amazon a month later. Sources say that after her downgrade, she had a hand in persuading Lehman to spike a subsequent bearish report on Amazon by Suria, called ''Of Toys and 10Qs,'' and to put out her more bullish report. Becker denies this and claims that Suria spiked his own report. Lehman's director of research announced at the time: ''The firm has one voice on Amazon's fundamentals and stock, and that's Holly Becker.'' Since then, she has made an attention-grabbing downgrade on eBay Inc. and put out a sour report on Yahoo! Inc. Suria is keeping a lower profile. ''This allows me to make calls like this without repercussion and excessive backbiting,'' he says. By Marcia Vickers in New York _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ BACK TO TOP					RELATED ITEMS The Fall of the Net Analyst TABLE: Some Got It Right Unconventional Wisdom from Lehman INTERACT E-Mail to Business Week Online

Copyright 2000-2008, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved. Terms of Use   Privacy Notice