Celebrate Express to Pay Massive One-Time Dividend Thursday

Long-time readers will know I am a fan of special dividends. More often than not, the stock takes a short dip when it goes ex-dividend and recovers in full in short time. Meanwhile, savvy investors get to pocket the cash.

Celebrate Express (BDAY) has a big special dividend coming. The party store chain will pay $1.25 on April 26 to shareholders of record on April 12.

BDAY has stumbled of late, and the below chart reflects the market's disappointment. While the company has discontinued its unprofitable Storybook Heirlooms brand, it still expects a small GAAP loss in 2007. BDAY should be profitable excluding non-cash compensation expenses. I think that the company is lowballing estimates to bring down expectations, and that there is a fair chance the company will be GAAP profitable for the full year (note that the most recent quarter came in at the high end of guidance). Either way, Celebrate Express has a solid balance sheet, with over $32M in cash, a market cap of $77.85M and an enterprise value of $45.78M.

Disclosure: I am long BDAY