24/7 Wall St. » KELYA

IT Staffing Services Acquisition Boosts On Assignment (ASGN, MAN, KELYA, RHI)

Paul Ausick — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 18:10:26 +0000

Staffing agencies, both for temporary and permanent hires, have been having a pretty good year so far. Things got better today as On Assignment Inc. (NASDAQ: ASGN) announced the acquisition of privately held Apex Systems in a cash and stock deal worth more than $500 million, plus the assumption of $100 million in existing Apex debt.

The deal creates a company with a pro forma revenue of $1.3 billion, and On Assignment will become the second-largest IT staffing company in the US. On Assignment’s share price has risen more than 22% so far this year, not counting today’s spike. Competitor Robert Half has seen its share price rise about 7.4%, while Manpower Group (NYSE: MAN) is up nearly 30%, Kforce Inc. (NASDAQ: KFRC) is up about 19% and Kelly Services Inc. (NASDAQ: KELYA) is up nearly 14%. Lower unemployment, more job openings, and an overall improvement in the US economy have led to the higher share prices.

On Assignment’s shares are up about 28% today, at $17.50 after posting a new 52-week high of $18.25 earlier today. The stock’s 52-week range is $6.27-$18.25.

Filed under: Mergers and Buy Outs Tagged: ASGN, KELYA, MAN, RHI

Implications of Major S&P Component Changes (MJN, MBI, V, CIEN, CLF, DYN, KBH, GMCR, BTH, CHP, CVG, ROST, CLF, SNH, ATW, DY, KELYA, ELY)

247wallst — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:24:05 +0000

Standard & Poor’s often makes S&P index changes for the S&P 500, the S&P Mid-Cap 400 and the S&P Small Cap 600 at the end of the year. This probably is not going to be the last component shuffling before the end of the year, but this is likely to create some action in several very active stocks. Some of the big changes announced Friday evening were Mead Johnson Nutrition Co. (NYSE: MJN), MBIA Corp. (NYSE: MBI), Visa Inc. (NYSE: V), Ciena Corp. (NASDAQ: CIEN), Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE: CLF), Dynegy Inc. (NYSE: DYN), KB Home Inc. (NYSE: KBH) and Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAQ: GMCR).

Some of these changes will only have minor buy and sell effects from S&P index mutual funds and ETFs, but some will see significant changes.

Mead Johnson Nutrition Co. (NYSE: MJN) will replace MBIA Corp. (NYSE: MBI) in the S&P 500, after Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY) is splitting off its approximately 83% holdings in Mead Johnson Nutrition. MBIA currently ranks 500th in the index and is no longer representative of the S&P 500 index market cap space. That is called the MBIA boot.

Visa Inc. (NYSE: V) will replace Ciena Corp. (NASDAQ: CIEN) in the S&P 500. Ciena will move down an index rather than be booted entirely as it will replace Blyth Inc. (NYSE: BTH) in the S&P MidCap 400, and Blyth will replace C&D Technologies Inc. (NYSE: CHP) in the S&P SmallCap 600. C&D was the smallest component of the S&P SmallCap 600, and is now too small for even the small-cap index.

S&P MidCap 400 components Ross Stores Inc. (NASD:ROST), Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. (NYSE:CLF) and SAIC Inc. (NYSE:SAI) will move up an index to replace Dynegy Inc. (NYSE:DYN), KB Home Inc. (NYSE:KBH) and Convergys Corp. (NYSE:CVG) in the S&P 500 Index. Dynegy, KB Home and Convergys will move down an index and will replace Ross Stores, Cliffs Natural Resources and SAIC in the S&P MidCap 400 index.

S&P SmallCap 600 components Senior Housing Properties Trust (NYSE: SNH), Green Mountain Coffee Roasters Inc. (NASDAD: GMCR) and Atwood Oceanics Inc. (NYSE: ATW) will move up an index to replace Dycom Industries Inc.(NYSE: DY), Kelly Services Inc. (NASDAQ: KELYA) and Callaway Golf Co. (NYSE: ELY) in the S&P MidCap 400. Dycom, Kelly Services and Callaway Golf will move down an index rather than being eliminated and will replace Senior Housing Properties, Green Mountain Coffee Roasters and Atwood Oceanics in the S&P SmallCap 600 index.

As most of these are index moves, they tend to have less of a formal impact on the stocks. The big move will be Visa, Inc. (NYSE: V), which will now get to finally join the S&P 500. Its market cap varies from every source: $63.28 billion at Yahoo! Finance, Google Finance is $68.65 billion, and Bloomberg is at $60.4 billion. Shares rose over 3.3% in the after-hours session to $84.10 after closing down 1.2% at $81.34 versus a 52-week trading range of $41.78 to $83.40. We will have to make some calculations on Monday, but this will represent a significant buy-in trade for funds that track the S&P500 that will have to buy million of Visa shares.

JON C. OGG

Posted in Financial Stocks, Index, Mutual Funds Tagged: ATW, BTH, CHP, CIEN, CLF, CVG, DY, DYN, ELY, GMCR, KBH, KELYA, MBI, MJN, ROST, SNH, V

Top Pre-Market Analyst Downgrades (KELYA, KLAC, LRCX, MRVL, PNY, RHI, SNDA, XLNX)

247wallst — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 06:26:09 +0000

These are the top downgrades and negative analyst calls we are seeing this Thursday morning:

Kelly Services (KELYA) Cut to Sell at Citigroup.
KLA-Tencor (KLAC) Cut to Equal-weight at Morgan Stanley.
Lam Research (LRCX) Cut to Underweight at Morgan Stanley.
Marvell Technology (MRVL) Started as Neutral at Credit Suisse.
Piedmont Natural Gas (PNY) Cut to Neutral at Baird.
Robert Half (RHI) Cut to Sell at Citigroup.
Shanda Interactive (SNDA) has seen estimate and targets cut by Citigroup, JPMorgan, and Goldman Sachs.
Xilinx (XLNX) Started as Neutral at Credit Suisse.

Jon C. Ogg
September 4, 2008