For example, Cymer, Inc.'s share price fell 13.4% in the quarter.We have been purchasing Cymer for more than a year. We estimated Cymer would earn only about $1 per share per year in 2012, which made its share price seem relatively expensive. However, we believed the company was spending more than $4 per share after taxes annually to develop a new laser light source that would enable Intel and ASML to produce significantly smaller silicon chips. The new chips would be more powerful, allow faster operations and use less energy.Within a few years after the introduction of its new lasers, we thought Cymer could earn $15-20 per share.We expected that earnings stream to grow significantly for a decade. This is because Cymer has an unusually large portion of its revenues provided by fees from its customers for the use of Cymer lasers that they had purchased! ASML, Cymer's most important customer, agreed to purchase Cymer in October. While we will make more than a 50% return on our investment, we had hoped for a lot more than that in coming years.We had added to our Cymer investment in the quarter when its share price fell. Cymer's intellectual property provides this company with an important competitive advantage over businesses that would like to copy its invention and business model.
From Baron Funds’ third quarter commentary.
From Baron Funds’ third quarter commentary.
