A strong opening for Disney’s Enchanted, a surprisingly good opening for This Christmas, and decent showing for another 6 to 8 films led the box office to an up weekend following two straight negative weekend comparisons. The top 12 films pulled in 4.4% more than a year ago according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. The depth of films […]
Dow Jones ran a news story on Tuesday noting that Verizon was raising the price of its FiOS TV service purchased outside the bundle by 12% for 2008. This is the second consecutive year that Verizon has raised FiOS TV prices. Wait a second. I thought that FiOS TV was going to set off a […]
A significant risk for fourth-quarter earnings for the major entertainment conglomerates is an extremely crowded DVD release schedule. The risk is heightened by generally weak DVD sales for the past 18 months. Early indications from the launch of several blockbuster movie titles are not promising, so investors should keep an eye on Disney (DIS) , […]
With an AT&T acquisition of Echostar apparently imminent, I want to reiterate that while in the short-term investors will see the deal as negative for cable, in the long run the outcome may not be nearly as dire feared. On its most recent conference call, Comcast specifically pointed to AT&T discounting using the satellite bundle […]
With all the chatter about Lululemon Athletica (LULU) following the New York Times expose’ on the seaweed or lack thereof in certain items the company sells, I thought it might be a good time to provide an overview of Northlake’s only long position that is not involved in media and telecom. Endeavor Acquisition Corporation (EDA) […]
Lionsgate reported another confusing quarter. Revenues blew away expectations but so did expenses. EBITDA was a big negative number but the company reported over $21 million in free cash flow. The press release was vague and the simultaneously issued 10-Q did not directly address the absolute figures but instead focused on percentages. All that said […]
The winning streak at the weekend box office didn’t last long. After last weekend saw a string of six straight down weekends snapped, this weekend was back in negative territory. A disappointing opening for Fred Claus from Time Warner’s Warner Brothers studios was the primary culprit in an 11% year-over-year decline for the top 12 […]
Disney reported 4Q07 EPS of 42 cents adjusted for a tax benefit compared to consensus of 41 cents. Revenues of $8.93 billion matched the $8.98 million consensus. Comparing the segment numbers to my spreadsheet shows a remarkable closeness. This is actually one the things I like about Disney: the company is very tightly managed and […]
In the midst of the carnage yesterday, Northlake had one winner: Endeavor Acquisition Corporation (EDA). EDA is in the final stages of completing its acquisition of privately held American Apparel, a very hot teen retailer. The shares rose over 5% on heavy volume in response to a very positive press release. EDA announced that that […]
Last weekend, the domestic box office broke a long slump with receipts rising for the first time in six weeks. American Gangster provided the oomph bringing in a better than expected $43.5 million. Bee Movie also helped with a gross of $38 million although the figure was below expectations of $40-45 million. These two films […]
