While Viacom investors may be concerned by the weakness in Q1 ’07 ratings at the core US MTV network, we believe MTV remains a must buy channel/brand (including online properties) for advertisers looking to reach teens/young-adults. However, it appears that Viacom’s new management is quite focused on improving MTV’s programming. According to an LA Times…
Discovery Communications (66 2/3%-owned by DISCA) has poached Angela Shapiro-Mathes from News Corp. to run its TLC cable network. LA Times Story on Angela Shapiro-Mathes hiring The hiring is significant, as it illustrates the rapid influx of executive talent into Discovery from other major media companies. We do not believe the executive migration into Discovery…
We suspect that WMG is rallying today because of a significant pick-up in US music industry numbers last week. Physical CD sales for the first week of Q2 ‘07 (week ending 4/8) were down only 9% y-o-y (compared to a Q1 ’07 decline of 21%). Adding in digital sales, total unit sales for the week…
I guess the GSM overlay won’t cost $2 billion after all. According to press reports, Vivo plans on spending around $850 million in 2007 which is lower than last year’s CapEx of $1 billion and below our estimate of $950 million. Yet only a few months ago, analysts questioned how the company could build a…
With the proliferation of original content on HBO and Showtime, our concern over the future of pay cable networks’ investment in third-party produced movies has been growing. Despite our fears, HBO has just extended its deal with Universal (including the smaller studios within Universal such as Focus and Rogue) thru 2015 (last deal struck in…
Samsung bucked the industry trend of lower than expected phone sales in Q1 by selling 34.8 million phones in Q1 (up 9% sequentially and up 20% yoy) compared to our estimate of 31.2 million. ASP’s, however, declined 9% sequentially and 19% compared to the prior year.
In conjunction with Pali Capital’s institutional derivatives strategy group we have structured an option strategy that provides the ability to benefit from the downside we believe will occur in Sprint Nextel’s stock from weak fundamental results over the upcoming six months while protecting from the risk of a buyout or improved execution of the company.
We believe that TIM Participacoes, the second largest wireless operator in Brazil, finished Q1 strongly with solid net additions in March. TSU has been tracking to top our Q1 estimate of net additions of 663,000 by 104,000 and we believe that might have increased in March.We expect preliminary industry figures out of Anatel next week…
Telemar’s latest offering to Preferred Shareholders cut the implied premium over Ordinary Shareholders in half when compared to its proposed share restructuring last year and as a result provides another positive data point for Preferred Shareholders in Brazil, albeit not a perfect one.
We reduced our 2007 and 2008 EBITDA estimates by nearly $1 billion to $11.6 billion and $11.1 billion, respectively. Our 2008 EBITDA estimate is $1.5 billion below both street consensus and the mid-point of company guidance. We lowered our price target to $12 from $14 based on 5x our 2008 EBITDA estimate and 16x our…
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