These are this Tuesday morning’s early-bird analyst downgrades and cautious research calls seen from Wall Street with about two hours until the market opens:
BCE (BCE) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Corning (GLW) Started as Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
FLIR Systems (FLIR) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
Government Properties Income Trust (GOV) Cut to Underperform at BofA/Merrill Lynch.
Goodrich Corp. (GR) Cut to Neutral at BofA/Merrill Lynch.
JON C. OGG
These are the top pre-market upgrades and downgrades we have seen from Wall Street this Thursday morning:
BCE (BCE) Started as Overweight at Thomas Weisel.
Google (GOOG) Raised to Buy at Canaccord.
IAC/Interactive (IACI) Raised to Buy at Canaccord.
Symantec (SYMC) Started as Buy at Auriga.
ValueClick (VCLK) Raised to Buy from Sell at Canaccord.
Carlisle Companies (CSL) Cut to Underweight at KeyBanc.
CNOOC (CEO) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Janus (JNS) Cut to Neutral at JPMorgan.
McAfee (MFE) STarted as Sell at Auriga.
SolarFun (SOLF) Cut to Sell at Collins Stewart, but was also raised to Hold from Sell at Canaccord.
Jon C. Ogg
March 26, 2009
It is still fairly thin in analyst upgrades and downgrades as this week marks the return of investment banking and research departments from what is nearly a two-week hiatus. Here are the few stand-out calls we have seen early this morning with more than two hours to the open:
Jon C. Ogg
January 5, 2009
It is getting rather thin in analyst coverage, but these are the top ten analyst upgrades and downgrades we have seen this Wednesday morning:
Jon C. Ogg
December 17, 2008
According to Reuters, the auto bill died in the Senate and there will be no more action this year.
Reuters reports that the Bank of America (BAC) will cut as many as 35,000 jobs,
Reuters writes that with higher jobless rates, fewer people are missing work, even if they are unhappy with their jobs.
There is one huge going-private transaction which has yet to close and has been pending for what feels like an eternity. BCE, Inc. (NYSE: BCE) in Canada has been in the works for more than a year. This morning the company made an announcement which may throw the going-private deal led by the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan in jeopardy.
According to Reuters, a proposal from the SEC would cut the role of credit rating agencies.
Reuters writes that United (UAUA) will lay-off 950 pilots.
Reuters reports that GM (GM) will cut truck output and offer interest free financing on most models.
Reuters reports that UPS (UPS) cuts its earnings outlook on higher gas prices.
Reuters reports that Paulson has suggested oil producing nations up their output.
The Wall Street Journal reports that Google (GOOG) will offer a new product which measures web traffic to specific sites.
The Wall Street Journal writes that Rio Tinto (RTP) and BHP (BHP) won an 85% increase in the benchmark price for iron ore in China.
The Wall Street Journal writes that coal producers are having trouble meeting demand.
The Wall Street Journal writes that Huntsman (HUN) has sued Apollo over its withdrawal from a buy-out.
The Wall Street Journal writes that Nokia (NOK) will lift its stake in major phone software firm Symbian.
The Wall Street Journal writes that Ticketmaster will pay IAC (IACI) $750 million before it is spun-off.
The New York Times writes that NYSE Euronext (NYX) will by 25% of the Doha Securities Market i Qatar.
The New York Times writes that Google (GOOG) data will be used in a Florida trial to argue that explicit material doesn’t violate community values.
The New York Times writes that Google News has experienced a slowing of its traffic.
The New York Times writes that several hundred US companies got a total $265 billion for bringing captial overseas back into the US.
The New York Times writes that ad sales at cable channels are growing faster than those on broadcast TV.
The New York Times writes that the NYT.com website would merge with it sister site for the International Herald Tribune.
The FT writes that banks was more concessions in the BCE (BCE) buy-out.
Bloomberg writes that Toyota (TM) may cut its 2008 sales goals.
Douglas A. McIntyre
According to Reuters, small business sentivment is still shaky.
Reuters writes that InBav may start Anheuher-Busch (BUD) takeover talks this week.
Reuters writes that Asian central banks are propping up their currencies.
Reuters writes that the CEO of HSBC (HBC) is calling for higher interest rates to fight inflation.
Reuters writest that companies with board members connected to a winning US political party do well after an election.
The Wall Street Journal writes that LG is looking at the GE (GE) appliance business.
The Wall Street Journal writes that home sales are improving in some markets where foreclosures have deeply depressed housing prices.
The Wall Street Journal reports that high prices are improving earnings at fertilizer companies.
The Wall Street Journal writes that the CEO of Vodafone (VOD) will step down after five years.
The Wall Street Journal writes that movie producers are taking less risk by not making their own movies. They also get less reward.
The Wall Street Journal writes that 402 companies had trouble with auction rate securities in the first quarter.
The Wall Street Journal writes that China’s nearly $75 billion national social-security fund will begin making private equity investments.
The Wall Street Journal writes that a big battle in graphics chps is beginning with Nvidia (NVDA), AMD (AMD), and Intel (INTC) at the heart of the competition.
The New York Times writes that the auto industry is feeling the pain of tight credit.
The New York Times reports that high fuel prices are doing severe damage to the trucking industry
The New York Times writes that small businesses are still selling but at a deep discount.
The FT writes that Greenspan says the US is still likely to have a recession.
The FT reports that BCE (BCE) will be allowed to block a ruling which blocked its LBO plans
The FT reports that Web 2.0 firms are not making any money.
Douglas A. McIntyre
The skulduggery of banks who want out of LBOs is already widely known, and expected. Big financial companies have tried to put the legs out from under a deal to take Clear Channel (CCU) private, and now appear ready to take a powder on the contract to buy-out Bell Canada (BCE).
Leaving aside the ethics of the matter, although that is hardly fair, the $51.8 billion which was offered for BCE was expensive. It was, according to the Guinness Book Of World Records and other sources, the largest deal of its kind, ever.
Now, banks, including Citigroup (C), which does not have much of a reputation left at any level, want better terms including higher interest rates. According to The New York Times "The negotiations over the Bell Canada buyout began to fray late Friday."
The whole matter is likely to end up in court with the LBO firms in the deal, which include Providence Equity Partners and Madison Dearborn Partners, filing suits to close the deal. BCE may take legal actions as well.
A BCE lawsuit may be the wild card in the fight. That suit could be brought in Canada, giving the company a home court advantage. There is question of whether Canadian courts would be less forgiving than their counterparts in the US. That means the banks could be in for more trouble than the expected.
When the BCE deal was announced, shares got above $44. If the courts in Canada start to move in the direction of forcing a deal to be closed on terms similar to those in the original contract, the final price may not be far from that number.
Douglas A. McIntyre
With all those subprime write-downs hitting bank and investment house balance sheets it would be nice for them to off-load some of the LBO debt they have taken on over the last year. No such luck.
According to the FT "the group of banks backing buyers Apollo Management and Texas Pacific Group are having trouble selling on the leveraged buy-out debt to third parties. With the bulk of the debt remaining on their books, the banks are sitting on a sizeable loss." And, that is only the tip of the iceberg. S&P reports that banks are holding $150 billion in syndicated debt.
As the Fed cuts rates, the yield on many LBO bonds falls as well. That makes them less attractive, especially with the risk they carry giving leverage to newly private companies with a potential recession coming.
The carnage is not over yet. Other large deals like BCE (BCE) are still in the wings and there is plenty of debt sitting on bank books from transactions finished last year.
It would not be too outrageous to believe that 20% of the loans for LBOs will have to be written off by financial firms. That is about $30 billion. Most of the money is probably spread over a dozen large banking operations, but that is still $2.5 billion each, on average. Some of the more aggressive LBO lenders are probably sitting on bad money pools which will require write-downs of closer to $5 billion.
Who said the banking crisis was over?
Douglas A. McIntyre
Over the last two days, BCE (BCE) the largest phone company in Canada, was purchased by the investment arm of Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan and several private equity firms. The price was over $32 billion making it the largest buy-out in Canada’s history.
A day later, Australian conglomerate Wesfarmers offered $19 billion for the country’s second largest retailer, Coles. It would be the largest buy-out in Australia’s history.
So, over $50 billion went for buyouts in a little over 24 hours. And, that was over a weekend.
Shares in private buy-out firms Blackstone (BX) have been falling since its IPO. But, the sell-off might be premature.
There have been recent rumors of a sale of Freeport-McMoran (FCX). The company has a market cap of over $31 billion. In the car industry, Delphi is likely to be taken private as it comes out of Chapter 11. Ford (F) has Jaguar and Land Rover on the block.
Macy’s (M) may be in play. The company has a market cap near $20 billion. Expedia (EXPE) is rumored to be a target. The price tag there would be about $10 billion.
Credit may be tightening, but the appetite for big risk does not seem to be.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com. He does not own securities in companies that he writes about.
Canadian phone giant BCE (BCE) is being taken private by an investor group led by Teachers Private Capital, the private investment arm of the Ontario Teachers Pension Plan, Providence Equity Partners Inc. and Madison Dearborn Partners, LLC . The price is $48.5 million.
The deal has virtually no premium. Shares currently trade at $38, up about 40%. this year. The purchasers want shareholders to believe that the run-up to the current share price was none of their doing, so why should they pay extra. Major shareholders, which include Franklin Resources and Toronto Dominion Bank will probably not see it that way.
And, why should they? It is not their fault that the shares jumped up either.
There will be a fight over the price of this deal.
Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com.
Stock Tickers: GOOG, AQNT, VCLK, TFSM, MSFT, YHOO, TWX, SLM, NNI, FMD, MEDI,HAL, WHT, MEH, AAI, COT, IPS, PALM, DELL, NFI, BCE, AA, DOW, WYN, NDAQ,GFI, KR, ABN, BNI, DCX
This week was a huge week for the all of the buyout investors and speculators. There were more ongoing discussions being reported in the media than you could imagine. In a world of private equity gone wild, its hard to not be a bit cynical on the raw number of these. This is also after Google (GOOG) announced it would pay $3.1 Billion to acquire the master online advertising company DoubleClick.
Since the Google buyout of DoubleClick you might as well go ahead and throw these three into the hat: aQuantive (AQNT), ValueClick (VCLK), and 24/7 Real Media (TFSM). We addressed these back pre-market on April 2 when the DoubleClick buyout was starting to surface. Microsoft (MSFT), Yahoo! (YHOO), and even Time Warner’s (TWX) AOL unit may have to all look after these companies now that they let Google takeover DoubleClick.
Sallie Mae (SLM)….media saying it could go to private equity, of course. This even has Nelnet(NNI) and First Marblehead (FMD) up in hopes that if one student loancompany gets gobbled it means the others could too (or at least maybethe worst could be behind)…. who knows.
MedImmune (MEDI) exploring alternatives…."put itself up for sale."
Halliburton (HAL) for Weatherford (WFT)….WFT up 3% today as a result.
Midwest Air (MEH) snubbing Airtran (AAI) again, Airtran says the bid is high enough. Do you believe them?
Cott (COT) in talks with private equity firms on a Cadbury Beverage combination…..stock up 28%…."Welcome Back Cot….."
IPSCO (IPS)….up $20 since earlier in the week, company confirmed "talks that could lead to a sale," but not with whom…..
Palm (PALM) re-rumored as potential bait for Dell (DELL), these rumors just won’t die.
Novastar Financial (NFI) exploring options….a Takeunder for subprime slime?
Bell Canada (BCE) now under potential takeouts by the Ontario Teachers Pension Fund, so to speak.
Alcoa (AA) survived its earnings after a crummy history…..many think this one still gets gobbled…..
Dow Chemical (DOW) rumors of a private equity buyout just won’t die,even if they deny the rumor and fire 2 executives for "holdingunauthorized talks" with outside parties.
Wyndham Worldwide (WYN) could be the next buyout for its valueaccording to Cramer, as the only Cendant piece that hasn’t made thegrade.
Kroger (KR) denied it is interested in going private…..maybe WallStreet recalls that grocery store margins are low. The good news isthat you can now get a huge portion of the items you can at WholeFoods, without the "Whole Paycheck" price.
NASDAQ (NDAQ) held talks with the Oslo Stock Exchange. Supposedly nodeal is imminent, but right now if you are an exchange you arebasically takeover bait (hence, our BAIT SHOP).
ABN AMRO (ABN) still on deck…..who, what, when, where????? Barclays (BCS)?
Gold Fields Ltd. (GFI) went up on what may have been a fake "buyout rumor or interest" from a Mr. Pastorini…..can you say "Weird?"
Interest in rails after Warren Buffett disclosed stake in BurlingtonNorthern Santa Fe Corp (BNI)….looks like Buffett feels differentlyabout rail companies than airline companies.
Magna International confirmed its role in ongoing Chrysler talks, part of DaimlerChrysler (DCX).
Jon C. Ogg
April 14, 2007
Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.
Stock Tickers: SLM, NNI, FMD, MEDI, HAL, WHT, MEH, AAI, COT, IPS, PALM, DELL, NFI, BCE, AA, DOW, WYN, NDAQ, GFI, KR, ABN, BNI, DCX
What preceeds "Merger Monday"? The answer isn’t really Sunday. It’s "Rumor Friday," of course.
This week we even heard about private equity guys admitting the deals are getting crazy because of the financing available. By the size of this list, you can tell that there is no way under the sun that these can all occur. It’s truly an M&A world gone wild. Oh well, here is the list of stocks that have been rumored to be in merger discussions or potential targets this week, and there are probably a dozen or more others:
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