24/7 Wall St. » INET

Loose Lips Alert: AOL and Private Equity For Yahoo!? (AOL, MSFT, AOL, GOOG, BX, INET)

Administrator — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 23:19:07 +0000

Loose lips sink ships. Maybe mergers are not as secretive as discussing military secrets, but the world of M&A and private equity has some new buzz: AOL Inc. (NYSE: AOL) is considering acquiring Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO). The same rumor has been out before. Tonight’s report comes from a Wall Street Journal news flash that AOL and several private equity firms are evaluating the possibilities of such an acquisition.

Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG) has taken up all of Yahoo!’s thunder, and the Jerry Yang hatchet job that he pulled by blocking the Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT) may have been the dumbest management move of the decade.

Carol Bartz is not likely to just roll over here and take an at-the-money buyout just to show she is the turnaround and exit queen. The flip-side is that Carol Bartz also knows Yahoo! is not worth $30.00 any longer.

The WSJ threw out Silver Lake and Blackstone Group LP (NYSE: BX) as possible interested parties. From our point of view, those companies make sense to be in the deal considering the size of the deal that this would imply. Silver Lake is deep in tech deals and Blackstone has the deep pockets. What is interesting is that it is implied that a private equity ‘only’ deal could come.

Private equity has another deal pending in the internet space currently, albeit far smaller. Internet Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ: INET) is in the buyout process currently with Hellman & Friedman paying $13.35 per share if the buyout is approved.

Simply getting the talk out there has driven up the price of poker. Yahoo! shares closed up 5.7% at $15.25 on news of a new search pact in China and shares are indicated up another 11.2% at $16.95 in late after-hours trading indications. This information getting leaked was either planned or is yet another example of what happens when too many people are familiar with a situation.

JON C.OGG

Filed under: Internet, Media, Mergers and Buy Outs, Private Equity, Rumors Tagged: AOL, BX, GOOG, INET, MSFT

Day Trader & Active Trader Alerts (AIG, ATHN, CKR, CROX, DECK, PALM, SIRI, INET)

247wallst — Fri, 26 Feb 2010 14:04:46 +0000

This morning’s top movers for day traders and active traders are seen in the following:

American International Group, Inc. (NYSE: AIG) down over 5%
athenahealth, Inc. (NASDAQ: ATHN) down 11%
CKE Restaurants Inc. (NYSE: CKR) up 25%
Crocs, Inc. (NASDAQ: CROX) down 9%
Deckers Outdoor Corp. (NASDAQ: DECK) up 8%
Palm Inc. (NASDAQ: PALM) up 0.5%
SIRIUS XM Radio Inc. (NASDAQ: SIRI) up almost 1%

We have given some brief pre-market data, a news summary and color on each of these that can be found here over at VSInvestor.com.

Elsewhere, Internet Brands, Inc. (NASDAQ: INET) is showing up on the NASDAQ pre-market gainers as more than up 100% on 5,000 shares. The difference here is that the pre-market trading indications do not match up with this.

Have a great trading day!

-The 24/7 Wall Street Team

Filed under: Pre-Market Activity, Trading Alert Tagged: AIG, ATHN, CKR, CROX, DECK, INET, PALM, SIRI

Top Analyst Upgrades (BLK, KMX, CTL, INET, LOW, STX, LUV, WWWW)

247wallst — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:06:50 +0000

These are the top pre-market early bird analyst upgrades and positive research calls seen from Wall Street early this Wednesday morning:

Blackrock (BLK) upgraded to Buy at Deutsche Bank.
CarMax (KMX) upgraded to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
CenturyTel (CTL) upgraded to Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
Internet Brands (INET) Started as Buy at Canaccord.
Lowe’s (LOW) upgraded to Outperform at FBR.
Seagate (STX) upgraded to Buy at Deutsche Bank; upgraded to Overweight at Thomas Weisel.
Soutwest Air (LUV) Raised to Buy at Argus.
Web.com (WWWW) upgraded to Outperform at FBR Capital.

JON C. OGG

Posted in Analyst Calls Tagged: BLK, CTL, INET, KMX, LOW, LUV, STX, WWWW