Posts for Ticker ‘RTRSY’

Trying to Interpret News Corp.’s Earnings Data (NWS, RTRSY, TOC)

On Monday afternoon, we’ll get to see earnings out of NEWS CORP (NYSE:NWS). The estimates from First Call for Rupert Murdoch’s now even larger media empire appear to be $0.27 EPS on $8.24 Billion in revenues.  But we would urge caution in really using any numbers for this quarter and perhaps the next two quarters.  This is the first report to have the amalgamated News & Dow Jones Empire and that deal only closed in the final days of the fourth quarter.

We don’t even have any hopes of any formal guidance and we’d only expect a partial report on all the properties that Murdoch & Co. want to keep or get rid of.  How would you like the job of calculating all those numbers from all the units?

As this will be very difficult to interpret, we’d look at Reuters (NASDAQ: RTRSY) and Thomson (NYSE: TOC) if there is a big price change in News Corp.’s stock as those companies are also in a game changing merger that will make each one hard to evaluate.

NEWS CORP’s 52-week trading range is $17.84 to $25.78, so Friday’s near-3% gain to $19.41 leaves plenty of room for this stock to trade in either direction.

Jon C. Ogg
February 2, 2008

Posted on: February 2, 2008 – 9:58 am in Earnings, Media, , ,

November Online Financial Site Stats: Yahoo! (YHOO) Losing Its Lead

Based on November online audience numbers from comScore, Yahoo! Finance (YHOO) is losing the huge lead that it once had over MSN Money (MSFT) and AOL Finance (TWX).

In November 2006, Yahoo! Finance had 406 million pageviews. AOL Finance had 239 million and MSN Money 155 million. Last month, the Yahoo! figure was 344 million followed by AOL at 338 million and MSN at 151 million. Not exactly the kinds of numbers Yahoo! wants to post.

In the tier of financial websites below the three portals, Dow Jones (DJ) sites had 95 million pageviews, down slightly from November of last year. Forbes had a big drop from 84 million pageviews last November to 56 million last month. CNN Money was fairly flat at 55 million pageviews. BusinessWeek has 21 million pageviews, up slightly. But the site still trails its rivals by a wide margin.

The Street.com (TSCM) dropped modestly year-over-year to 20 million pageviews. Reuters (RTRSY) rose slightly to 29 million pageviews. And, Bloomberg.com almost tripled to 29 million pageviews.

Yahoo! Finance has some work to do.

For a chart, click through to the next page and then enlarge.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Read More »

Posted on: December 13, 2007 – 7:12 am in Internet, , , , , ,

Europe Markets 12/10/2007

Markets in Europe were mixed at 6.15 AM New York time.

The FTSE fell .1% to 6,546. Prudential (PUK) rose 2.7% to 716. Reuters (RTRSY) fell 1.1% to 588.

The DAXX rose .3% to 8,017. Commerzbank rose 2.3% to 28.14. Siemens (SI) rose 1% to 107.23. VW fell 1.3% to 155.02.

The CAC 40 was up .1% to 5,727. LaFarge rose 10.5% to 119.01. Renault rose 2.1% to 101.07.

Data from Reuters

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: December 10, 2007 – 6:21 am in International Markets, , ,

Reuters.com Leads Online Financial Website Derby

According to Hitwise numbers for October, Reuters.com and CNNMoney.com had the largest web audiences of financial sites which are not part of larger portals like Yahoo!. Reuters.com grew much more quickly. Among other sites reviewed were Forbes.com Dow Jones (DJ) WSJ.com, TheStreet.com (TSCM), The Motley Fool, Portfolio.com, McGraw-Hill (MHP) BusinessWeek.com and Bloomberg.com

The figures are based on percent of US market share of total visits.

Site                           Percent of US Visits                Year-over-Year Change

CNN Money               .0224%                                   (16%)

Reuters.com              .0220%                                    95%

TheStreet.com           .0185%                                    33%

TheFool.com              .0165%                                    59%

Bloomberg.com          .0129%                                    38%

Forbes.com                .0126%                                    14%

WSJ.com (paid)          .0111%                                    58%

Portfolio.com              .0058%                                    NA

BusinessWeek.com    .0049%                                    18%

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: November 20, 2007 – 2:35 pm in Internet, , , ,

Would Reuters (RTRSY) Or Yahoo! (YHOO) Buy SeekingAlpha?

SeekingAlpha, the big financial commentary and blog site, syndicates its content at a number of other large web properties with Yahoo! (YHOO) Finance and Reuters.com (RTRSY) probably being the largest. There has been recent speculation about the value of technology and news websites like Huffington Post and TechCrunch. The main criticisms of these valuations is that they are too high based on the traffic and revenue that the sites are likely to be creating. Would a large financial "blog" face the same issues?

The value analysis that simply looks at revenue does not address the issue of larger media companies picking up assets that they believe are strategic. Earlier today, CBS (CBS) bought Dotspotter for a rumored $10 million. The site is a fairly small celebrity property.

SeekingAlpha would have a significant value if it were owned by a large financial media company. It produces over a hundred pieces a day, a mix between its own commentary and blogs from other websites. A number of large financial sites like WSJ.com, NYTimes.com, and MarketWatch.com already run blogs from their own writers. It appears to be considered a hot business.

Based on data from Compete, Alexa, and Quantcast, 24/7 Wall St. estimates that SA has 2,750,000 page views a month. Financial sites tend to get high CPMs due to their demographics, so we have assigned a $10 CPM to the advertisers on the site.

SA runs an average of four display ads on each page, which would bring in about $110,000 a month. The site also has six discount brokers in its "Trading Center". At a $2 CPM, these would bring in another $33,000. Classified and Adsense may be worth another $5,000, bringing monthly revenue to almost $150,000. This does not include any money they bring in from the use of their e-mail lists.

Having a hundred or more stories a day has a special value to sites like Reuters and Yahoo! Finance, especially if they have to pay for most of their current content. Reuters has high editorial costs due to its large number of full-time reporters. The SeekingAlpha stories could drive a high number of page views on a very large financial site.

On a simple 10x revenue model, SA would be worth a little less than $18 million. But, because of the value of the content, and its relative size compared to other financial commentary sites, SA is probably worth twice that amount, of $36 million. TheStreet.com (TSCM) currently has a market cap of $400 million. AOL owns another large financial blogging site called BloggingStocks which is uses to supply content and links to AOL Finance. It probably considers the strategic value of that site to be fairly big.

About a year ago, VC firm Benchmark Capital put money into SeekingAlpha. At some point they will want a return. SA already has relationships with Reuters and Yahoo!.

Deal?

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: October 11, 2007 – 12:08 pm in Mergers and Buy Outs, , , , , ,

Will MurdochMoney.com Go After Yahoo! (YHOO) Finance?

There has been a great deal of discussion about the WSJ Online becoming a free website, supported by advertising. A move of this kind is likely to hurt companies like The New York Times (NYT) and Reuters (RTRSY) which have large, ad-supported websites of their own. They occupy the top of the internet advertising food chain where brokerage firms, mutual funds, and premium products pay big money for advertising.

But, Murdoch has probably already figured out that the other big pot of online financial dollars is owned by Yahoo! (YHOO) Finance. It has about 12 million unique visitors a month and hundreds of millions of pageviews. News Corp may not find it terribly hard to build it own version of Yahoo! Finance and go after its big discount broker and banking ad pool.

What does Murdoch already have at his disposal. News. Yes, from The Wall Street Journal, MarketWatch, the Dow Jones News Service, and Fox News. Video. Yes, from the new Fox Business channel. Investing content. From Barron’s and Smart Money. And, its own data base of everything from earnings data to stock quotes.

Don’t be surprised. not even a little, if MurdochMoney.com becomes that largest US financial website on the internet.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: October 9, 2007 – 6:42 am in Media, , ,

TechCrunch And Huffington: Who Will Buy The Big Blogs?

The name brand blogs. The big ones. Huffington. TechCrunch. GigaOm. Boing Boing. Ars Technica. SeekingAlpha.

AOL has already bought Weblogsinc. It owns popular blogs including flagship Engadget.

But, with the internet operations at newspapers and some other tradition media companies making very little headway, the big blogs take on a very significant attraction. They reach audiences in great numbers. They have credibility. They are not expensive to run. And, they make money.

Take Huffington. According to research firm Compete, it has an audience almost as large as the online version of the Philadelphia Inquirer. As a part of a larger newspaper organization like The New York Times (NYT) or Washington Post (WPO), that audience could probably be much bigger. NYT and WPO need a Huffington or two. Their internet revenues are under 10% of their total and not growing fast enough to keep up with falling print sales. Huffington has raised $10 million in VC money. What is it worth? $100 million. Maybe more. Worth it for The Times or The Post. With the trouble that are in, yes.

The big tech blogs are even larger than Huffington.

According to internet measurement service, TechCrunch has an audience about a third of CNet (CNET). And CNet is in bad shape. It’s blog business has not caught on. In early 2006, its shares were $16. Now they trade at under $8. Do they need a way to improve their reach and image with the online tech crowd?

Alexa actually puts TechCrunch’s reach at double wsj.com. If Mr. Murdock’s News Corp (NWS) is going to start offering Dow Jones (DJ) print products for free, having a large tech news property could be a big deal. Tech site Ars Technica also has a larger reach than wsj.com. Another major tech blog that could enhance the overall web presences of Dow Jones.

In the core financial news field, SeekingAlpha is the largest stock market blog. It runs close to 100 stories some days. That is a lot of extra content, low priced content, for a company like Reuters (RTRSY), The New York Times, or Dow Jones.  More page impressions. A larger audience for online marketing.

The largest blogs will get offers. Too many big media companies need additional outlets and content on the web. The problem for the potential buyers is keeping the talent at the blog sites. Most rely on just one or two big names. But, that is not unlike the issue that TheStreet (TSCM) has with Cramer. He is the franchise. They have to give him incentives to stay.

The New York Times or Washington Post will stop by to see Huffington. It is just a matter of how soon.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: October 3, 2007 – 6:07 am in Media, , , , , , ,

August Business Website Numbers: Small Lead For Yahoo! While BusinessWeek And Motley Fool Fade

August audience figures from comScore show that Yahoo! (YHOO) Finance maintains a lead in unique visitors over rivals AOL Money (TWX) and MSN (MSFT) Money, but that the large pageview advantage that it once had is almost gone.

Yahoo! Finance had almost 13,7 million unique visitors in August, ahead of MSN Money at 11.5 million and AOL Money & Finance at 10.2 million. But, in pageviews, Yahoo! posted 289 million to AOL’s 266 million.

Forbes, with 6.1 million unique visitors and 64 million pageviews stayed well ahead of other online websites for old media companies including BusinessWeek (MHP), Reuters (RTRSY) and Dow Jones (DJ),

Two sites with strong brands continue to lag. BusinessWeek online had only 11 million pageviews. In August of last year, the BW figure was 27 million.

And The Motley Fool had eight million compared to TheStreet (TSCM) at 52 million in August of this year. In August 2006, The Motley Fool has nine million pageview while TheStreet had 20 million.

Another web property that showed a sharp drop from August 2006 was Reuters. Pageviews fell from 22 million to 14 million this year.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: September 12, 2007 – 6:40 am in Internet, , , , , , ,

Reuters $1B IT Outsourcing Pact Names Fujitsu Instead of TIBCO (TIBX, VMW, RTRSY, TOC)

We confirmed that Reuters (NASDAQ:RTRSY) has apparently given a $1 Billion IT outsourcing pact to Fujitsu Services to launch a standardized IT platform across its global operations.  Reuters wants to save $1 Billion over the course of a 10-year pact.

According to CNET, the pact is covering Reuters’ core IT internal services, including e-mail and desktop, and consolidates a number of existing deals and will manage some outside suppliers.  We took our own peak at the announcement and it isn’t from this morning and during a weak where market malaise and volatility ruled it probably seems muted in comparison.  Oddly enough, the term virtualization is thrown in for the entire network, which has to be noise to the ears of VMware (NYSE:VMW) and the few other virtualization providers.  Fujitsu is working with several other organisations, including Dell, Satyam, Siemens and Verizon, to deliver the overall service.

TIBCO Software used to be under Reuters and it eventually was jettisoned into its own company.  That was in the 1990’s and a few years ago it looks like ties were severed.  TIBCO still lists Reuters as a top 100 client on their site and they are still active with the company, but as an ex-parent you have to wonder if it could have gone their way.

We could speculate on it, but there are too many unknowns in light of the pending Reuters merger with Thomson (NYSE:TOC) and we don’t want to create any false buzz on a deal from earlier this week.  TIBCO does still do a lot of work with Reuters and TIBCO did just over $517 million in revenues in 2006 and is expected to jump to $585 million this year.  There is always even the possibility that TIBCO could even get to pick up more crumbs from it.

Jon Ogg can be reached at jonogg@247wallst.com; he is the publisher of the 24/7 Wall St. Special Situation Investing Newsletter and does not own securities in the companies he covers.

Posted on: August 17, 2007 – 12:55 pm in Software, Technology Companies, , , ,

June Traffic For Major Business Websites

Below are the June stats for the top 20 financial websites

Top 20 Online Financial News and Information Destinations

 
Brand or Channel                   Unique Audience (000)                Time Per Person (hh:mm:ss)
Yahoo! Finance  (YHOO)         14,878                                        0:24:11
MSN Money  (MSFT)                 11,190                                        0:17:39
AOL Money & Finance (TWX)     9,827                                       0:16:08
Wall Street Journal  (DJ)           7,852                                        0:20:12
Forbes.com                            7,813                                         0:05:54
Reuters (RTRSY)                    6,608                                         0:05:41
CNNMoney                             6,263                                         0:15:49
FreeCreditReport.com             3,276                                          0:09:15
Bankrate.com                         2,928                                          0:05:31
TheStreet.com (TSCM)            2,921                                          0:06:59
American City Business          2,884                                          0:04:01
Motley Fool                            2,871                                          0:10:43
BusinessWeek (MHP)            2,429                                          0:05:06
Bloomberg.com                       2,146                                          0:04:21
About.com Business (NYT)      1,553                                          0:02:16
Smartmoney                           1,487                                          0:11:19
CNBC.com  (GE)                     1,469                                         0:06:28
FT.com (PSO)                         1,239                                         0:02:17
USATODAY Money (GCI)          1,196                                        0:03:54
Google Finance  (GOOG)           1,102                                        0:07:31

Nielsen NetRatings

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: July 12, 2007 – 4:24 am in Uncategorized, , , , , , , , , ,

Will Pearson (PSO) Sell The Financial Times?

According to the Observer of London, many Pearson (PSO) shareholders want the company to sell the Financial Times. They believe that the paper is worth well over $1 billion, perhaps based on the price that News Corp (NWS) has been willing to bid for Dow Jones (DJ).

In recent years, Pearson has moved away from financial publishing and toward educational information.

Potential buyers could be Thomson (TOC) which recently bought Reuters (RTRSY) and Murdoch.

Douglas A. McIntyre

Posted on: June 24, 2007 – 7:13 am in Uncategorized, , , , ,

Major Financial Websites For May 2007

Looking at the May numbers for major financial websites points out the fairly significant differences between the numbers issued by NetRatings and ComScore.

The NetRatings figures show the following unique visitor numbers:

Yahoo! Finance (YHOO)                    14.7 million unique visitors

MSN Money (MSFT)                         13.1 million

AOL Money (TWX)                            10.6 million

Dow Jones Online (DJ)                       8.7 million

CNNMoney                                       7.1 million

Forbes                                              6.5 million

Reuters (RTRSY)                               6.1 million

Fool.com                                          3.4 million

TheStreet.com (TSCM)                      2.9 million

BusinessWeek                                 2.3 million

USA Today Money                           1.9 million

FT.com                                           1.4 million

The ComScore numbers, a different picture:

MSN Money                                     12.1 million unique visitors

Yahoo! Finance                                 11.4 million

AOL Money                                      10.3 million

Forbes                                              5.5 million

CNNMoney                                       5.2 million

Dow Jones                                        5.2 million

Reuters                                            3.3 million

BusinessWeek                                 1.9 million

TheStreet.com                                  1.7 million

Fool.com                                         1.6 million

The ComScore numbers show a year-over-year increase for

Yahoo, and fall-offs for Dow Jones, Reuters, and BusinessWeek.

Douglas A. McIntyre can be reached at douglasamcintyre@247wallst.com.

Posted on: June 23, 2007 – 6:49 pm in Uncategorized, , , , ,

Warren Buffett’s Conflict of Interest with Dow Jones (DJ, BRK/A, NWS, TOC, RTRSY)

Berkshire Hathaway (BRK/A-NYSE) has one serious impediment to getting involved in a buyout of Dow Jones (DJ-NYSE) as some speculate could happen at the right price.  Back on March 1, 2006 Berkshire Hathaway completed the acquisition of Business Wire.  Business Wire is perhaps the number one global press release distribution mechanism for major companies that report earnings, mergers, strategic alliance and the like.  It does compete with PR Newswire, Market Wire, Primezone and others, but most consider it the Rolls Royce of newswires and it is a Berkshire Hathaway portfolio company. 

Regulators of the past few years would probably overlook this as a non-event, but even a highly credible operator like Berkshire Hathaway might not want a conflict of interest this large.  Let’s forget about the Wall Street Journal and other holdings and look at the actual news terminal businesses that traders, brokers, newswire agencies, other media, and a portion of the public use for their direct news systems. 

If Berkshire Hathaway owned Dow Jones, how long would it take for an accusation to come out of Bloomberg, Reuters, Thomson, and others that the Business Wire press release feed was going straight to Dow Jones Newswires direct customers a bit faster than to redistribution partners? Not long at all.  Warren Buffett is probably well aware of this, but it has not been that well noted on other articles elsewhere.   What would happen if all of the other newswires out there were claiming that Marketwatch received superior speed and superior distribution capabilities over other free news sources from the Business Wire press release mechanism?  This would put the Reg. FD gatekeepers to a real test.  Buffett would have to make a  move he rarely makes: he’d have to sell a portfolio company (Business Wire), and in perhaps a record turnaround time.

Much of the public is not aware of the exact mechanisms and order behind public company news press releases, but an advantage of a few seconds and maybe even less time than that would drive subscribers to the faster service and away from the disadvantaged services.

There have been very recent reports that Ron Burkle has been approached to do a deal with the newspaper union to form a competing bid to News Corp. (NWS-NYSE) high premium deal.  There has also been reporting that Buffett acknowledged a potential but was unlikely to join the bidding, but that doesn’t keep speculators from stirring the water.  So as of now it’s up to the Bancrofts and the Murdochs and whoever else wants to try stepping in (if anyone).  The Dow Jones and News Corp. combination would likely not have much in the form of regulatory blockage, but there is a persistent question about how many employees would try to go elsewhere in a News Corp deal and what the direction of the news would go if it was a Murdoch & Co. unit.

Jon C. Ogg
June 5, 2007

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

Posted on: June 5, 2007 – 11:54 am in Buffett, Media, Mergers and Buy Outs, Press Digest, Private Equity, , , , ,

Overseas Market News (MAY 9, 2007)

                                VALUE        CHANGE    % CHANGE
NIKKEI                    17,748.12    91.28            0.52%
Shanghai Comp    4,013.08    63.07             1.60%
Hang Seng             20,844.78    138.43         0.67%
FTSE 100                6,569.50    19.10             0.29%
DAX 30                    7,466.40    24.20              0.33%
CAC 40                    6,043.77    9.52                0.16%

Toyota Motors (TM) posted a 2 Trillion Yen profit in Japan; sees slower growth ahead; stock indicated down 0.55%.

Japan Airlines posted a loss for its fiscal 2006.

Softbank (9984.JP) posted 2006 revenues of 2 Trillion Yen.

Rio Tinto (RTP) trading higher on London speculation that BHP Billiton (BHP) may bid on the company.  Keep in mind this could have antitrust issues on a global basis.

BNP Paribas posted a 25% EPS gaiun in Europe.

Easyjet trading lower despite narrower losses in London.

Alltel (AT) is generating bid interest from several groups according to WSJ. Rumors have been out there on this name already.

China Mobile (CHL) looking for acquisitions in Asia according to WSJ.

General Electric (GE) is being urged to split up the company by shareholders according to WSJ.  This is a short term-bull market play and a bad idea long-term.

Outback Steakhouse (OSI) shareholder vote delayed on merger because of a lack of shareholder vote.  They didn’t offer enough premium is why.

Thomason (TOC) and Reuters (RTRSY) talks now looking like a $17.5 Billion deal according to New York Times.

Jon C. Ogg
May 9, 2007

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

Posted on: May 9, 2007 – 4:57 am in International Markets, , , , , , , , ,

Media Mania After Dow Jones & News Corp. Merger Talk

Stock Tickers: DJ, NWS, RTRSY, TOC, NYT, WPO, SSP, MNI, BLC, LEE, GHS, XFML

It looks like almost all media stocks are running on David Faber’s report that Dow Jones (DJ-NYSE) is now a target of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (NWS-NYSE).  Here are the companies running:

Reuters (RTRSY), Thomson (TOC), New York Times (NYT), Washington Post (WPO), EW Scripps (SSP), and McClatchy (MNI). Even some of the second and third tier names are benefiting from the move to the likes of Belo Corp. (BLC), Lee Enterprises (LEE), and GateHouse Media (GHS).  The effects could be far-reaching enough that it even benefits the recent Xinhua Finance Media (XFML) for Chinese financial news coverage that recently came public.

This is a big “IF,” but if this deal does occur and if it is allowed to go through and all the parties that be agree to terms, then this deal would be a true game changer.  This could create an entirely new consolidated environment, and it create many other deals if this comes to pass. 

Jon C. Ogg
May 1, 2007

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

Posted on: May 1, 2007 – 10:36 am in Media, Mergers and Buy Outs, Old Media, , , , , , , , , , , ,