24/7 Wall St. » NFS

Top 10 Pre-Market Analyst Calls (ADCT, ABC, CAH, MCK, CRUS, LNG, HAIN, ISRG, NFS, PTR, VMED, WLK)

247wallst — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 06:54:16 +0000

These are the top individual analyst calls we are focusing on this Thursday morning in pre-market trading:

ADC Telecom (NASDAQ: ADCT) raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.
AmerisourceBergen (NYSE: ABC), Cardinal Health (NYSE: CAH), and McKesson (NYSE: MCK) were all downgraded to Hold from Buy at Citigroup.
Cirrus Logic (NASDAQ: CRUS) Cut to Perform from Outperform at Oppenheimer.
Cheniere Energy (NYSE: LNG) cut to Equalweight from Overweight at Lehman.
Hain Celestial (NASDAQ: HAIN) Cut to Underweight at JP Morgan.
Intuitive Surgical (NASDAQ: ISRG) started as Buy at Lazard; started as Market Outperform at JMP Securities.
Nationwide Financial (NYSE: NFS) Raised to Buy from Neutral at UBS.
PetroChina (NYSE: PTR) cut to Sell at Citigroup.
Virgin Media (NASDAQ: VMED) cut to Neutral at Jefferies,
Westlake Chemical (NYSE: WLK) Raised to Overweight at Morgan Stanley.

Jon C. Ogg
April 10, 2008

Nationwide Parent Wants To Take It Private… Going Mutual! (NFS)

247wallst — Mon, 10 Mar 2008 08:13:40 +0000

Nationwide Financial Services, Inc. (NYSE: NFS) has received a proposal from Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company, Nationwide Mutual Fire Insurance Company and Nationwide Corporation, to acquire all of the outstanding Class A shares of common stock of NFS for $47.20 per share in cash.

Nationwide Mutual owns all of the outstanding shares of the Class B common stock, which already gives the company essentially a "total control" status. This represents a 66.3% equity ownership and 95.2% of the combined total voting power.

Nationwide did set up an independent committee to review the offer that is comprised of independent and non-affiliated directors to consider the proposal, and it has noted that it will respond to this acquisition offer in due course after a full review and evaluation of terms.

Nationwide closed at $37.93 Friday, and shares are indicated up around $47.50 in early pre-market trading today. Its 52-week trading range is $37.42 to $65.52. As this is already a controlled entity, expecting a significantly higher bid may be a bit optimistic. A slightly higher bid isn’t that hard to fathom.

Jon C. Ogg
March 10, 2008

Pre-Market Analyst Calls (June 15, 2007)

247wallst — Fri, 15 Jun 2007 06:26:48 +0000

ABCO started as Outperform at CIBC.
AXTI started as Buy at First Albany.
BKD started as Buy at Jefferies.
BOOM started as Buy at First Albany.
CQB started as Buy at Morgan Joseph.
EXBD started as Sector Perform at CIBC.
FCN started as Outperform at CIBC.
FRE raised to Outperform at FBR.
HCBK started as Underperform at Bear Stearns.
HNSN started as Buy at Oppenheimer.
HOMB started as Sector Perform RBC.
INTC raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs; stock up almost 2%.
IIVI started as Buy at First Albany.
KNDL raised to Buy at Jefferies.
LGCY started as Buy at Oppenheimer.
NFS raised to Buy at Citigroup.
NFLX raised to Buy at Soleil.
PNX cut to Hold at Citigroup.
PTRY raised to Buy at Jefferies.
SFG raised to Buy at Citigroup.
VLY started as Peer Perform at Bear Stearns.
WSO cut to Hold at BB&T.

Jon C. Ogg
June 15, 2007