Posts for Ticker ‘LGF’

Today’s Best Market Rumors (11/3/2009) (CHU)(AAPL)(LGF)

newspaperUpdates throughout the day.

Updated 10.33 AM EST: Royal Bank of Scotland may have to divest its majority interest in the RBS Sempra Commodities joint venture. (The Deal)

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) may allow its CEO to be located in NYC and not the company’s headquarters in Charlotte (Bloomberg)

Fiat’s deal with Chrysler may end up helping the Italian company more than it does the American one. (Forbes)

Several states hard hit by the real estate downturn are considering suing large mortgage lenders.  (NYTimes)

GM’s board may decide the fate of Opel today.  (AP)

The New York State Pension Fund will put $1 billion into hedge funds  (Crain’s NY)

Studio Summit Entertainment may be a buy-out target for a larger studio like Lions Gate  (NYSE:LGF)  (LATimes)

China Unicom (NYSE:CHU) has only sold 5,000 Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhones. (Reuters)

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: November 3, 2009 – 8:52 am in Rumors, , , ,

Top Pre-Market Analyst Downgrades (ABH, BBX, XEC, LGF, HK, VTNC)

burning-money-pic4These are some of the top pre-market analyst downgrades we have seen this Wednesday morning:

AbitibiBowater (ABH) Cut to Underperform at RBC.
BankAtlantic (BBX) Cut to Underperform at FBR.
Cimarex Energy (XEC) Cut to Neutral at UBS.
Lions Gate (LGF) Cut to Maket Weight at Thomas Weisel.
Petrohawk Energy (HK) Cut to Market Perform at FBR.
Vitran (VTNC) Cut to Hold at Canaccord.

Jon C. Ogg

February 11, 2009

Posted on: February 11, 2009 – 8:07 am in Analyst Calls, , , , , ,

Icahn Buys More Lions Gate After Major Drop (LGF, IEP)

money_stack_pic4After the close of trading, there was an SEC filing showing that billionaire and activist investor Carl Icahn now controls more than 10.5%  of Lions Gate Entertainment Corp. (NYSE: LGF).  This was on the heels of a huge drop today.
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Posted on: February 10, 2009 – 5:41 pm in Activist Investor, Entertainment, Insider Activity, , , , , ,

Top Pre-Market Analyst Upgrades (BKS, HNI, LEAP, LGF, SAFM, SQM, SYNA, VIP)

These are the top pre-market analyst upgrades and positive calls we have seen so far this Friday morning:

  • Burger King (BKC) Started as Buy at Citigroup.
  • HNI Corp. (HNI) Raised to Neutral at Goldman Sachs.
  • Leap Wireless (LEAP) Raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
  • Lionsgate Entertainment (LGF) Started as Overweight at Morgan Stanley.
  • Sanderson Farms (SAFM) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
  • Sociedad Quimica (SQM) Started as Overweight at JPMorgan.
  • Synaptics (SYNA) Started as Overweight at JPMorgan.
  • Vimpelcom (VIP) Raised to Buy at Citigroup.

Jon C. Ogg
December 5, 2008

Posted on: December 5, 2008 – 7:38 am in Analyst Calls, , , , , , , ,

Top Pre-Market analyst Upgrades (AUTH, CBRL, CAKE, DRI, KR, LGF, PNRA, PMC, VLTR)

These are some of the top upgrades and positive calls we are seeing this Tuesday morning on Wall Street:

  • AuthenTec (AUTH) Started At Buy at Stanford Group.
  • CBRL Group (CBRL) Raised to Outperform at Raymond James.
  • Cheesecake Factory (CAKE) Raised to Outperform at Raymond James.
  • Darden Restaurants (DRI) Raised to Outperform at Raymond James.
  • Kroger (KR) Raised to Buy at Jefferies.
  • Lions Gate (LGF) Raised to Buy at Jefferies.
  • Panera Bread (PNRA) Raised to Outperform at Raymond James.
  • PharMerica (PMC) Started as Outperform at Oppenheimer.
  • Volterra Semiconductor (VLTR) Raised to Buy at Piper Jaffray.

Jon C. Ogg
October 21, 2008

Posted on: October 21, 2008 – 7:03 am in Analyst Calls, , , , , , , , ,

Blockbuster’s (BBI) Mad Dash

Blockbuster (BBI) continues to put its nose where it does not belong. First it tried to buy Circuit City (CC), a firm which is weaker than Blockbuster is, and Blockbuster is plenty weak. It shares are under $3, down from over $20 less than five years ago.

The issue of where Blockbuster would get the capital to close the deal came up quickly. The movie rental company’s management looked like buffoons.

Now Blockbuster wants to own a piece of Viacom’s (VIA) new pay-TV channel which is going into business to compete with HBO and Showtime. Viacom has lined up content from MGM (MGM) and Lions Gate (LGF). It is not clear why consumers, cable systems, and satellite TV companies would want a new movie channel, but that is only a minor detail.

According to The Wall Street Journal "As part of a deal being discussed, Blockbuster would get digital rights to the new channel’s programming in return for an investment in the partnership."

What is Blockbuster going to do with those rights and why would Viacom want to grant them?  Blockbuster is a failing company in the DVD retail business. It has too many stores. It also rents DVDs through the mail. But, that business is dominated by NetFlix (NFLX). BBI would like to stream movies over the internet. The number of companies in that business is too large to count.

Maybe Blockbuster shareholders will get lucky. Perhaps the company does not have the money to buy into the Viacom deal. That would leave management the job of fixing its current business.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: April 29, 2008 – 4:37 am in Mergers and Buy Outs, , , , , ,