Lionsgate Story Shaping Up

Lionsgate (LGF – recently renamed from Lions Gate Entertainment) announced the sale of its studio production facilities in Canada for $36.1 million. To be honest, I did not even realize the company owned its own facilities. According to a report I just read, this asset was going to generate less than $5 million in revenue […]

Thoughts on the Disney-Pixar Merger

It is hard to add value on the Disney-Pixar transaction. I received a dozen virtually identical analyst reports and CNBC was basically DisneyPixarVision for two days. I do want to highlight notes by Rich Bilotti of Morgan Stanley and Dave Miller of Sanders Morris Harris. It is not really anybody’s fault that the notes were […]

Knight Ridder Earnings Preview: Waiting On The Auction

It would be very surprising if anything of substance came from the earnings release and conference for the 4Q05 report by Knight Ridder (KRI). First, the company is in the midst of an auction with presentations being made to a number of interested industry and private equity buyers. This will probably restrict what management can […]

Gannett: A Little Better But Is It Sustainable?

Gannett (GCI) shares are rallied strongly, up about 3%, following the company’s fourth quarter earnings report issued before the open on Friday. The action is similar to the response to earnings from New York Times (NYT) and Dow Jones (DJ). Investors are reacting positively to stronger than expected trends in December advertising, hoping this time […]

Gannett Earnings Preview

Gannett (GCI) wraps up a busy week of newspaper earnings on Firady before the open. Consensus for the fourth quarter calls for EPS of $1.41 and revenue of $2.0 billion. Management has guided to the low end of $1.40 to $1.44. If the report is inline, the year will end up at $4.94, flat with […]

Dow Jones Showing Some Potential

I have no real complaints with the earnings report or conference call from Dow Jones (DJ). The report and guidance commentary is inline with evidence of upside potential to the 2006 outlook. This optimism has the stock trading higher, up 2% when the call started and up 3% as the call wraps up. I can’t […]

Lionsgate Sells An Asset and More Good News Coming

Lionsgate (LGF-the company recently renamed itself Lionsgate) announced the sale of its studio production facilities in Canada for $36.1 million. To be honest, I did not even realize the company owned its own facilities. According to a report I just read, this asset was going to generate less than $5 million in revenue and a […]

Dow Jones Earnings Preview

I don’t expect much action in Dow Jones (DJ) following the company’s earnings report before the open on Thursday. The stock took a big jump on January 3rd when the company preannounced better than expected earnings so only the guidance and commentary on January trends seems like it could generate any excitement. On that front, […]

New York Times: Decent Quarter But I Am Not A Buyer

New York Times (NYT) shares are rallied more than 2% yesterday following a decent 4Q05 earnings report. The advance is more notable given that the other newspapers tocks are all in the red today despite strong market breadth. NYT reported adjusted EPS of 64 cents, ahead of the 59 cent consensus and the company’s 59-62 […]

More Price Increases From Cable Competitors

Back at year end I came across a research report noting that Dish Network and Comcast were both raising pricies across their entire spectrum of video offerings with the largest percentage increases occurring on introductory level packages. This struck me as out of sync with the very bearish sentiment on the Street concerning the competitive […]