Posts for Ticker ‘SCHL’

Yu-Gi-Oh Starts Buying 4Kids Stock (KDE, SCHL)

4Kids Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: KDE) must have gotten tired of seeing its stock hitting new near-term lows in its stock prices.  The entertainment company which has the US rights to Yu-Gi-Oh ™ and rights to TMNT ™, Cabbage Patch Kids ™, and more has approved a share buyback plan of up to 1 million shares of its common stock through December 31, 2008.  This only represents $11.5 million dollars or so today, but the market cap for the company is only $154 million.

Interestingly enough, this one just recently started coming through on certain value investing stock screens based upon its balance sheet and the stock recently hitting 52-week lows making the company’s market cap closer and closer to its tangible book value.

4Kids still has spotty earnings, so using a hard book value isn’t the greatest measurement out there.  That being said, as of its September 30 balance sheet it only has $23.6 million in total liabilities and its total assets were listed as $172.5 million.  Normally we’d back out the goodwill and other intangibles and look at this with having real assets of roughly $135 million, but because of the name kid franchises it has we actually think the goodwill and intangibles are possibly understated.

We were briefly evaluating this one as a candidate in recent days for our Special Situation Investing Newsletter, but the fairly low trading volume may keep this at bay.  24/7 Wall St. does believe that it has an under-leveraged balance sheet, although the spotty earnings and cash flows currently and expected ahead are the reasons for that.

For the right buyer this would offer some extreme value under the rightcircumstances.  But it is definitely not a given that the company’sstock will be the assured beneficiary.  4Kids stock is up over 4% today at $11.75 after the news, and its 52-week trading range is $11.18 to $20.31.  This did hit a new 52-week low this morning at $10.72 before recovering and this has a short interest of 815,000 shares as of the latest data.

Jon C. Ogg
December 4, 2007

Posted on: December 4, 2007 – 2:22 pm in Entertainment, Stock Buybacks, , , , , ,

Pre-Market Stock News (July 19, 2007)

(AMTD) TD Ameritrade trading up 1% after beating and raising target.
(AVCI) Avici Systems trading up 29% on higher revenue guidance after earnings.
(BAC) $1.28 EPS vs $1.20 estimate.
(CAL) Continental $2.10 vs 1.84 estimate.
(CTXS) Citrix trading up 11% after beating revenues and two upgrades so far.
(EBAY) eBay trading down 1% after beating earnings, but lower listings.
(F) Ford bids due today for Rover and Jaguar units.
(HOG) Harley Davidson $0.14 EPS vs $0.13 estimate.
(IBM) IBM traded up 4% after beating earnings.
(JNPR) Juniper Networks trading up 8% after earnings and upgrade.
(LOGI) Logitech $0.14 EPS vs $0.16e.
(NAFC) Nash Finch $0.70 EPS vs $0.63 estimate.
(MOT) Motorola $0.02 EPS vs $0.00 estimate, but had already lowered.
(SAP) SAP trading up 8% after earnings rose 8% and a gain in market share.
(SCHL) Scholastic Corp. $0.93 EPS vs $1.02 estimate; sees 2008 $2.35-2.85 vs. $2.67 estimate.
(SPWR) SunPower $0.25 EPS vs $0.21e; down from $0.29 last year.
(UNH) UnitedHealth $0.87 vs $0.81 estimate.
(UNP) Union Pacific $1.65 EPS vs $1.62 estimate.
(VMC) Vulcan Materials lowerials lowered guidance.
(WIT) Wipro $0.12 EPS vs $0.12e.
(WMT) Wal-Mart is reportedly interested in acquiring China’s largest retailer Beijing Hualian, although companies have denied this.

Jon C. Ogg
July 19, 2007

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

Posted on: July 19, 2007 – 7:23 am in Pre-Market Activity, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Goldman Sachs Research Summary (June 5, 2007)

Bed Bath & Beyond (BBBY) downgraded from Buy to Neutral.

Earnings estimates Raised: Aracruz Celulose S.A. (ARA), Sappi Ltd. (SPP), Celanese (CE).  Earnings estimates Cut: XTO Energy (XTO).

Weyerhaeueser (WY) was pretty decent estimate hike. Goldman raised its 2007 EPS target to $1.40 from $1.20 and raised 2008 EPS from $2.05 to $2.40. Domtar (UFS) was added to the Americas Conviction Buy List and raised estimates for 2007 from $0.40 to $0.55 and 2008 from $0.55 to $0.75.

After the Scholastic (SCHL) share buyback plan, Goldman raised the 2008 EPS target from $2.50 to $2.65 based on the 14% share count drop.

(CCK) Crown Holdings removed from Americas Conviction Buy List to make room for Domtar (UFS) to go on.

Jon C. Ogg
June 5, 2007

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

Posted on: June 5, 2007 – 7:39 am in Analyst Calls, , , , , , , , ,

Scholastic: Would Harry Potter Already Take Profits? (SCHL)

Scholastic Corp. (SCHL-NASDAQ) is up more than 13% after announcing the $200 million accelerated share buyback plan after the close on Friday.  This is always a tough decision, but what do you do when almost your entire goal and entire expectation of a trade is reached in a sinle day?  The answer is usually, "take the money, jump on your magic broom, and fly off to the bank."

We surmized that Harry Potter was buying Scholastic (SCHL) stock with the news on Friday because it looks like most of the Harry Potter profits from this book release are being put to use to repurchase shares to shrink the float.  On a fully diluted equal basis, by reducing the float by 14% and if everything else remains entirely static then you could imply a theoretical 13% to 17% expected stock move depending on your math.  Of course, the world isn’t static and the opinions of the impact on shares from buybacks varies as much as the opinions on the Harry Potter craze.

With shares up more than 13% at $36.95 and with it hitting a new 52-week high of $37.30 today and with the shares already up in that estimated ’stock impact range,’ it would be hard to imagine that Harry Potter himself would be doing anything other than hopping onto his Nimbus 2000 and flying off to the bank. 

Jon C. Ogg
June 4, 2007

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

Posted on: June 4, 2007 – 12:30 pm in Stock Buybacks,

Harry Potter, The Stock Investor (SCHL)

Scholastic Corp. (SCHL-NASDAQ) made an announcement after Friday’s close that the company was starting a $200 million accelerated share buyback plan via Deutsche Bank. The company expects to repurchase an estimated 14% of its currently outstanding common stock.

It looks like the company is using all of its Harry Potter profits to buyback and retire its stock, so in a sense the publisher is having Harry Potter user his allowance buy stock in Scholastic Corp.  The stock closed up 2% at $32.51 on Friday and was basically unchanged in after-hours trading.  The 52-week trading range is $24.99 to $37.08.

Amazon.com announced that it has already secured 1 Million pre-orders on May 8 for the last Harry Potter novel called "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows."  Amazon has reduced its price from $18.99 to $17.99, which is supposed to be a 49% discount.  This was after 95 days of pre-orders, and Amazon said it took 174 days for the sixth Harry Potter book. 

So, Scholastic is already counting its chips.  Does anyone really believe that this will be the last Harry Potter novel?

Jon C. Ogg
June 2, 2007

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

Posted on: June 2, 2007 – 7:01 am in Entertainment, Shareholder Issues, Stock Buybacks,