Posts for Ticker ‘TOC’

Top 10 Pre-Market Analyst Calls (GFIG, GU, HTZ, MBT, NSM, PM, SGP, TOC, TIBX, VOD)

These are not all of the calls we are seeing this morning, but these are the top analyst calls we see affecting shares in pre-market trading this Monday morning:

  • GFI Group (NASDAQ: GFIG) started as Market Perform at KBW.
  • Gushan Environmental Energy (NYSE: GU) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at Piper Jaffray.
  • Hertz Global (NYSE: HTZ) downgraded to Neutral from Buy at UBS.
  • Mobile Telesystems (NYSE: MBT) raised to Outperform at Credit Suisse.
  • National Semiconductor (NYSE: NSM) started as Market-weight at Thomas Weisel.
  • Philip Morris International (NYSE: PM) started as Overweight at Lehman.
  • Schering-Plough (NYSE: SGP) downgraded to Equal-weight from Overweight at Lehman Brothers.
  • Thomson (NYSE: TOC) downgraded to Hold from Buy at Deutsche Bank.
  • TIBCO Software (NASDAQ: TIBX) downgraded to Underperform from Hold at Jefferies.
  • VODAFONE (NYSE: VOD) downgraded to Underweight at Morgan Stanley.

Jon C. Ogg
March 31, 2008

Posted on: March 31, 2008 – 6:18 am in Analyst Calls, , , , , , , , , ,

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, , ,

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, , , ,

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, , , , ,

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, , , , , , , , , , , ,