WilTel's stock

It's a stock that's tripled in value in less than a month. Sound like a good buy? Not to some. News on Six business reporter Steve Berg says it appears WilTel is a tough sell in its hometown.

Monday, November 4th 2002, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

It's a stock that's tripled in value in less than a month. Sound like a good buy? Not to some. News on Six business reporter Steve Berg says it appears WilTel is a tough sell in its hometown.

Count Roger Scott as one who won't buy WilTel. "I probably wouldn't invest in Williams.â€ Reporter: "Just because?â€ Roger Scott, "Just because." Scott says he doesn't trust them. And that appears to be a common theme. "At least in this town, because there's a lot of folks that got burned or they heard a lot of bad news or whatever."

Stockbroker David Healey works at one of the bigger firms in town. He says out of the more than two-dozen other brokers there; nobody has a client with WilTel stock. And yet, somebody out there is buying. "I think there's some real potential and opportunity there. I think everybody feels really good about the new CEO and yeah, I would." If you'd bought the stock last month at around $5, when they emerged from bankruptcy, you could sell it today for more than $15, triple your money.

"Traditionally a company like this that's gone through all this stuff has a lot of the bad news behind 'em if not all of it as a result, they may recover pretty nicely." But Healey says he would tell his own clients, assuming any of them wanted WilTel stock, that they should take a wait and see approach. "It's going to be awhile though before they really get some earnings on the table so you can see what they're doing and how they're doing."

Healey says the market is up overall, which accounts for some of the increase in WilTel's price. The rest? He says it's probably just positive news.