Posts for Ticker ‘PER’

Xerox (XRX) Overpays For ACS (ACS)

95129cDell (DELL) paid a price that it could not defend, at least financially, for Perot (PER) earlier this month. Xerox (XRX) has decided to follow Dell down the same road by paying an extraordinary premium for ASC (ACS), a business outsourcing operator. The price tag is $6.4 billion in cash and stock. Read More »

Posted on: September 28, 2009 – 7:16 am in Mergers and Buy Outs, , , ,

Tech Titans Holding $260 Billion In Cash (DELL, PER, ORCL, JAVA, MSFT, AAPL, IBM, GOOG, CSCO, INTC, HPQ, QCOM, EMC, YHOO)

The economy is obviously getting better, so long as you are not one of the unemployed or about to lose your job.  Now with more than a 50% rally from the March lows and a Dow Jones Industrial Average challenging the 10,000 level, suddenly everyone wants to put on their investment banker hats again and look for buyers and buyout candidates after deals are announced.  This week’s Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) deal for Perot Systems Corp. (NASDAQ: PER) was a $3.9 billion acquisition versus $12.7 billion in cash and equivalents held at the end of the quarter.  The Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL) deal for Sun Microsystems Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA) is valued at $7.4 billion, or $5.6 billion net of Sun’s cash and debt.  We went back through our list from September 2, 2009 where we noted that outside of the financials  in the 20 largest US companies had a cash hoard of $335 billion that could be used for mergers and acquisitions, and that is not accounting for lines of credit, stock or debt that could be sold, and other means of financing a deal.  While nowhere near all of the cash will ever be used, many companies could pay big dividends before any tax changes.

So we wanted to look through the technology sector and after we looked through the top 100 markets caps in our 24/7 Wall St. Real-Time 500 we added a few new additions in the tech sector that still had over $5 billion in cash.  Out if the $335 billion from those in the top twenty, we broke out Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), International Business Machines (NYSE: IBM), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG), Cisco Systems Inc. (NASDAQ: CSCO), Intel Corp. (NASDAQ: INTC), Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ: ORCL).  Even after a huge rally, $335 billion and then some could go a very long way for strategic and bolt-on acquisitions as a positioning strategy for the next decade.  Now, going further down the list of the top 100 companies with $5 billion or more in cash from tech companies alone adds in Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ), QUALCOMM Inc. (NASDAQ: QCOM), EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC), and Yahoo! Inc. (NASDAQ: YHOO). When we tally up all the cash, there is over $260 billion available from these few tech companies that could be deployed for mergers, acquisitions, or the good old dividends.  Again, that is before tallying up credit lines, factoring, debt sales, and other financing methods.
Read More »

Posted on: September 25, 2009 – 6:41 am in Consumer Electronics, Dividend, Editor's Picks, Internet, Large Cap Stocks, Mergers and Buy Outs, PC Companies, Private Equity, Rumors, Semiconductor, Software, Technology Companies, Value Investing, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Media Digest 9/24/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

newspaperReuters:   The young and affluent in China may become more active consumers.

Reuters:   The G20 is looking to nurture the recovery and add financial safeguards.

Reuters:   Taxpayers may never get back all of their US bailout funds.

Reuters:   The Fed says the recovery in under way. Read More »

Posted on: September 24, 2009 – 3:52 am in Press Digest, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Media Digest 9/22/2009 Reuters, WSJ, NYTimes, FT, Bloomberg

newspaperReuters:   Obama pushed his economic message before the G20 summit

Reuters:   A Senate panel took up healthcare legislation.

Reuters:   Bank of America (BAC) missed a deadline for supplying information from Congress and now faces another threat from the SEC. Read More »

Posted on: September 22, 2009 – 4:01 am in Press Digest, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Top Day Trader Alerts (DPTR, AMGN, PER, DELL, LEN, POT, MOS)

These are this Monday’s top day trader and active trader alert stocks in the pre-market.  We have more details on each for volume and price moves at VSInvestor.com:

Delta Petroleum Corporation (NASDAQ: DPTR) is getting whacked and battered today on poor well results.  It was a very bad weekend as shares are down 35%.

Amgen Inc. (NASDAQ: AMGN) is up over 2% and actually close to 52-week highs on positive study data.

Perot Systems Corp. (NYSE: PER) is up huge by 65% or more, but traders are selling as this is a huge premium and above what many would have expected.  Dell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) is going to be accused of overpaying.

Lennar Corp. (NYSE: LEN) is down 4% on somewhat active volume after posting wider losses.

Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan (NYSE: POT) is down almost 5% and not as much as it could have been… Lower guidance is hurting shares, look at Mosaic Co. (NYSE: MOS) on this one as well.

You can join our open email distribution list which goes out several times per week for top day trader alerts, analyst upgrades and downgrades, IPO’s, key secondary offerings, guru investor data on Buffett and others, mergers, and more.  We also have an affiliate offering a top 10 trading lessons sign-up.

JON C. OGG

Posted on: September 21, 2009 – 9:14 am in After-Hours Activity, Pre-Market Activity, Trading Alert, , , , , , ,

Dell (DELL) Overpays For Perot Systems (PER)

nokShares of Perot Systems (PER) are up 65% to $29.69 on news that the company will be bought for $3.9 billion. Perot’s 52-week high.

Dell is substantially overpaying to get into the technology and IT infrastructure business, industries where it is far behind rivals including IBM (IBM) and HP (HPQ). Dell may believe that it has no choice other than to pay a financial premium that it cannot defend on an ROI basis because of a strategic need that it cannot fulfill within its current operation. Dell has been criticized on Wall St. for relying too much on PC and server sales, where margins have come under more and more pressure. Read More »

Posted on: September 21, 2009 – 8:27 am in Mergers and Buy Outs, PC Companies, Technology Companies, , , ,

Top Analyst Upgrades (ACN, APC, AAPL, CUB, IRF, NANO, PER, RAX, ZUMZ)

These are this morning’s top analyst upgrades and positive research calls seen from Wall Street analysts early this Thursday morning:

Accenture (ACN) Started as Outperform at Baird.
Anadarko Petroleum (APC) Raised to Outperform at FBR.
Apple (AAPL) Started as Outperform at William Blair.
Cubic (CUB) Raised to Overweight at JPMorgan.
International Rectifier (IRF) Started as Buy at Merriman Curhan Ford.
Nanometrics (NANO) Started as Overweight at Piper Jaffray.
Perot Systems (PER) Started as Outperform at Baird.
Rackspace (RAX) Started as Buy at ThinkEquity.
Zumiez (ZUMZ) Raised to Outperform at William Blair.

If you wish to be notified by email when the top analyst calls hit, along with each morning’s top day trader alerts, along with news of IPO’s, key offerings, guru investor data on Buffett and others, mergers, and more, you can join our open email distribution list which goes out several times per week.

Jon C. Ogg

Posted on: September 3, 2009 – 8:04 am in Analyst Calls, , , , , , , , ,

Dell Steps Slowly Into More Services (DELL, HPQ, IBM, PER)

dell-logoDell Inc. (NASDAQ: DELL) has been branching out further into IT and web-based services in an effort to supplement and to get away from a model that is almost solely-dependent upon PC sales and peripheral sales.  It has not taken as aggressive of a path as Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ) via the EDS purchase, and neither company anywhere as dedicated as International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM) in services.  But by the looks of things the company has started to migrate into this direction.  While we feel the answer to this is “It’s about time!” there is actually an answer as to why this migration has been slower and strategic rather than swift and broad.

Read More »

Posted on: April 14, 2009 – 2:03 pm in PC Companies, Technology Companies, , , ,

H-P Confirms EDS Talks, Who’s Next? (EDS, HPQ, ACN, CSC, ACS, PER, UIS, ACXM, BE)

As traders look to the news covering whether or not Electronic Data Systems Corporation (NYSE: EDS), there was a release from Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HPQ) that confirmed the two companies were engaged in merger talks but there were no assurances that a deal could be reached. As a result, there are many other tech and IT-sourcing companies to look at that other players may take an interest in.  Keep in mind that many of these large tech companies do not want to be involved in being acquired and some of the companies will have stronger takeover provisions.  Everyone of these companies are different, yet all are in overlapping areas.  Here is a handful of names that could fall under that sort of tie-up if the deal comes to pass:

  • Accenture Ltd. (NYSE: ACN), although maybe too large;
  • CA, Inc. (NYSE: CA);
  • Computer Sciences Corp. (NYSE: CSC);
  • Affiliated Computer Services, (NYSE: ACS);
  • Perot Systems Corp. (NYSE: PER);
  • Unisys Corp. (NYSE: UIS);
  • Acxiom Corp. (NASDAQ: ACXM);
  • Bearingpoint, Inc. (NYSE: BE)…..

If we took the mid-point of the pricing at $12.5 Billion we would have a rough share price of $25.00 per share on EDS.  At that rough price, you would have a company that analysts expect to be priced at 18.2 times DEC-2008 earnings and 0.55-times revenue estimates.

Any such deal for EDS would likely have to come in the form of a friendly buyout.  This company doesn’t protect itself as hard as other companies, but Capital IQ does note the following tools the company has:

  • Removal of directors only for cause;
  • Board can change size of members;
  • Advanced Notice for director nominations;
  • Move by 50% of shareholders to remove directors;
  • Board Indemnification;
  • Blank Check Preferred Stock.

EDS is seemingly involved in more aspects of IT outsourcing and consulting than it isn’t.  Because of the rate that IT-workers come and go inside the Indian IT-outsourcing companies and because of laws restricting total foreign ownership in India, we did not include the public Indian-IT operations in this report 

You can join our open email distribution list to hear about other mergers, IPO’s, spin-offs, secondary offerings, and other special situations.

Jon C. Ogg
May 12, 2008

Posted on: May 12, 2008 – 3:17 pm in Mergers and Buy Outs, Rumors, Technology Companies, , , , , , , , ,

Earlybird Analyst Calls (June 25, 2007)

Stock Tickers: ABI, BBSI, BMY, CAP, CLUB, CVX, FCBP, GM, IPG, OMC, MIG, PER, PIR, SKH, SMSI, TRLG

ABI raised to Outperform at Baird.
BBSI raised to Strong Buy at JMP Securities.
BMY raised to Outperform at Bear Stearns.
CAP started as Buy at Jefferies.
CLUB cut to Neutral at Credit Suisse.
CVX raised to Buy at B of A.
FCBP raised to Outperform at FBR.   
GM raised to Buy at Goldman Sachs.
IPG raised to Buy at B of A.
MIG raised to Outperform at FBR.
OMC raised to Buy at Deutsche Bank.
PER raised to Buy at KeyBanc/McDonald.
PIR raised to Buy at UBS.
SKH started as Outperform at Credit Suisse; started as Buy at B of A.
SMSI raised to Buy at Jefferies.
TRLG raised to Outperform at CIBC.

Jon C. Ogg
June 25, 2007

JOn Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: June 25, 2007 – 6:24 am in Analyst Calls, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,