Disney is set to report their first quarterly earnings tomorrow since the return of Disney CEO Bob Iger last November. There has been no public discussion of his strategy beyond Iger’s announced plan to restructure the management team and return power to the creatives after the DMED organizational debacle spearheaded by former CEO Bob Chapek.…
We are downgrading AT&T to Neutral. Our estimates are no longer materially divergent from consensus and AT&T’s dividend yield dropped beneath Verizon’s, as it should have. We do not a assign price targets to Neutral rated stocks, but AT&T is near our estimate of year-end fair market value of $21. AT&T’s transformation to a connectivity…
Last week, we published: Is Disney Preparing to Shop Hulu? following their decision to start licensing content more aggressively to third-parties versus keeping all their content exclusive to their streaming platforms. We sense investors would view a Disney sale of Hulu quite favorably as it would clarify their streaming strategy, reduce leverage, and improve DTC…
Earlier today, Bloomberg reported that Disney was shifting away from keeping all its content in-house and would begin selling catalog movies and TV series to third-parties (link). Remember that prior to the launch of Disney+, Disney aggressively licensed content to third-parties such as Netflix, Starz, etc. The knee-jerk reaction is that Disney is simply looking…
The quarterly reports of wireless operators point to an elongating replacement cycle for smartphones and less overall switcher activity. That’s not a good data point for Apple, which reports tomorrow.
We are initiating coverage of META with a BUY rating and a $200 one-year price target, based on ~17x 2024 EPS (GAAP) of $11.70, which is notably above consensus 2024 EPS of $9.90. Why Now? We sat on the sidelines during COVID as the online ad market roared back to life and with it Meta’s…
Last week, we were interviewed by The Economist on their Money Talks podcast. The discussion (embedded below) centers around the challenges facing Disney and the key strategic decisions facing newly returned CEO Bob Iger. We join the discussion at the 12 minute mark, with some key topics highlighted with time stamps below. Later on, Matthew…
Here are our nine key questions for Netflix management on tonight’s Q4 2022 earnings interview (our Q3 2022 questions can be found here). 1. Are you dropping the $9.99 plan? When you first launched the basic with ads tier, it became the most inexpensive and fourth listed Netflix plan. In the US it appears you…
Last week’s Nelson Peltz/Trian presentation on Disney, titled “Restore the Magic” (link), read more like a short seller presentation at the Ira Sohn conference, mixed with an untimely plea to restore the dividend. We agree that Disney has made mistakes over the past decade from waiting too long to pivot to streaming (remember, Netflix streaming…
Welcome to the Sixth Edition of the LightShed Earnings Scorecard – our attempt to hold companies and analysts accountable for the quality of earnings calls. 70 companies tracked This quarter we tracked the quarterly earnings calls of 70 companies, adding iHeart and Omnicom, but excluding MSG Sports, which did not host a call. Inflation and…
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